


The hardest of hearts

by det395



Series: The hardest of hearts [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Dark Will Graham, Eventual Smut, Hallucinations, Jealousy, M/M, Manipulation, Nightmares, Pining, Silence of the Lambs References, Touch-Starved, Verbal Abuse, Will is not doing well psychologically, because I felt like it, sorta follows canon though, there are some tidbits of heterosexuality and i am so sorry about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28574715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/det395/pseuds/det395
Summary: After the incident, Jack and Alana restrict anyone from seeing Hannibal. Will is feeling unstable again and has to get a hold of his feelings, but he can’t seem to stop the shedding of his skin.
Relationships: Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: The hardest of hearts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2093676
Comments: 111
Kudos: 292





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the feedback on the first part of this fic, everyone has been so nice. ❤️
> 
> Reading the first part of this series is relatively important to understand this one. I follow canon vaguely but change a lot of the dialogue and scenes to fit with character development from the event in the first fic I posted. 
> 
> Just a couple of other notes: I have included the character Buffalo Bill, but I have changed him quite substantially, so he is not transgender, and there are no mentions of the transphobic theories. If anyone is concerned about how I portrayed him, you can message me [on tumblr](http://will-gayham.tumblr.com) for any clarifications!
> 
> I'm going back and forth between a T and M rating but decided to be safe with the M. Most of it is probably T, though with similar violence and suffering to the show, and the last part/epilogue will have a higher rating but can be skipped if needed.

Will chokes and then gags, sputtering out thick, sweet-copper fluid all over his sheets. He pants heavily three times and crawls out of bed so fast that he stumbles and slams his shoulder into the wall, leaving a plaster of blood in the pattern of his soaked-through shirt.

He squeezes his eyes shut against the blinding bathroom lights to avoid his reflection, tearing aside his clothing to get in the shower. It’s shockingly cold and then piercingly hot, but he lets it wash over him for a few minutes anyway, turning in half-circles and rubbing at his skin before opening his eyes.

The water is still running bright red. Will scrubs over his neck repeatedly and the blood flows faster, vibrant, with no sign of stopping. His beard rubs his palm raw, and then he moves down to his ribs where it’s leaking straight from his torso in one long flow.

He’s overcome with such a wave of dizziness that he has to reach his hands out to the walls on either side to steady himself as he slips to the floor and finds purchase against the cold porcelain wall. 

The dream won’t leave his skin. In this one, he was blind to the world, but it was just as vivid as the rest. A heavy body pressing down, hands wrapping around his skin, and blood smearing between, with _that_ smell, God, the smell, it all feels so real, and he’s not entirely convinced that he’s out of the dream yet. Everything is a nightmare right now.

He still isn’t sure if he was supposed to be a victim or a recipient.

He finds the complimentary soap and scrubs at his cheeks and down his neck. The blood is getting stuck in his beard, sopping out of the skin right down to the follicle. 

He crawls out of the shower and finds his razor, shaving right down to his skin so he can try and see if there are real wounds where those parts of him fell off and settled on the floor in Hannibal’s cell.

-

“Smooth as a baby’s bottom, huh?” 

Zeller sticks a finger into his cheek. Will jerks away from him and goes to stand on the other side of the room. He breathes in deeply to calm himself so that he doesn’t do something dumb like try to smack him over the lab bench.

“Whoa.” Zeller puts his hands up to show his innocence. “Just wondering what made you ditch the scruff.”

Will offers nothing but a glare. The exhaustion covers him like a steady rain of hail, and he thinks he might vomit if he moves too fast.

“Not a good day, huh?” Zeller asks.

“I think it looks nice on Will. I often wish I could scrape off a few layers and find my youth again,” Price says.

“It’s long gone, buddy,” Zeller says.

“Why do you always gotta call me buddy? This is why no one ever believes we’re married.”

“No one believes we’re married because of my good looks.” 

“Yeah, maybe when _your_ scruff is gone.”

Zeller smooths down his mustache with two fingers. “You told me you loved my facial hair.”

Will presses his fingers into his eyes until he sees stars, still not entirely convinced he’s out of the nightmare.

“Will,” another voice snaps, and it’s the one thing that could make things worse. “Come with me, let’s talk.”

After a lingering ten seconds of rebellion, Will gets his legs moving, mildly grateful to leave the banter behind.

“I already told you what happened,” Will mutters, stepping into the office.

“How are you doing, Will? Really?” Jack leans forward to look into his eyes, concern laced on all his features.

“I’m fine.”

“You look like a dead man walking. Why’d you shave?”

“My brain doesn’t like it when I sleep. That would be too much of a break for me.”

“Would you be completely opposed to talking to a normal psychiatrist?”

Will huffs out a laugh. “Because it went so well last time?”

Jack sighs. “Right now, I just need to inform you that we’re cutting off consultation from Hannibal.”

“I really don’t think we need to worry about him getting out again. It was just some incompetent guards trying to be cruel.”

“Men who are now dead.” His voice is sharp, scolding. Will stays quiet.

He feels a sting on his cheek. He cut himself with the razor last night and wonders if it has reopened, if there is a steady trickle of warm blood currently rolling down his cheek.

“I trust Alana to stop another stunt like that from happening. What I don’t trust is how much Hannibal can get under your skin.”

“He doesn’t get under my skin anymore.”

“I saw you last night, and you looked like a broken man.”

“I was overwhelmed with all those people staring at me, and I just wanted to go home. I’m not a ‘broken man,’” Will says with distaste. 

“I think you forget that I know who Hannibal is, how manipulative he can be.”

“I have a good life now. You’ve seen it. I’m better, I know what my boundaries are.”

“You and Hannibal didn’t seem to have many boundaries last night.” 

Will flinches. “More people are going to die, Jack, and he can actually help with this. I need him.” 

“You don’t need Hannibal Lecter, Will. No one does. He’d be better in the ground, and I never should have let you see him.”

“This isn’t just a suggestion, is it?”

“No. Alana isn’t allowing any more visitors unless we specifically authorize them. No correspondence of any kind. Hannibal’s being left in the dark from now on.”

Will grinds his jaw, working hard to look Jack in the eye. “When more families die, that’s going to be on your conscience, you know it will be.”

“I thought you’d changed too, Will. I thought this whole manipulation thing was over and done with.”

“I think Hannibal knows who the Tooth Fairy is. Old patient maybe, or—”

“Hannibal knows how to get under your skin. That’s all it’s ever been, and I won’t sit here and watch it happen again, not after last time.” His voice raises. “And that’s my final word on this.” 

“Jack, I have—”

“ _Don’t_ make me repeat myself.”

Will doesn’t try to hide any of his animosity when he stares back at Jack. He sees the hint of worry in Jack’s raised eyebrow, the suspicion in his observing eyes. Will breaks away from the stare.

“I’ll drop off your coat at the dry cleaners later, then I’ll get it back to you. Thanks for your help last night,” he says, voice gentler than before. He turns and leaves the office.

Thinking about last night mostly just fills him with shame and indignity. How he’d shut down right in front of Jack and had his cheeks wiped clean of blood as though he was a child playing in the dirt. He’d lost the mask for a moment.

He treks back into the lab with relief until his brain clicks into the words coming from Zeller this time.

“As seen in the photo above, the blood appears in the shape of a handprint, like a lover's caress. Yet again, the unconventional but clearly passionate relationship between the two is called into question—” 

Price kicks him under the table, hard, and Zeller cuts off abruptly. He looks up at Will with the look of a deer caught in the headlights.

Will stomps into the room and finds his folder, snatching it up quickly and ignoring the few pages he loses to the air.

“Tell Jack I’m working from home today.”

“Look, it’s just Lounds, we don’t believe a word of what—”

Will doesn’t catch the rest of the sentence, already long gone down the hallway. He digs his nails into his skin and manages to stop doing something, anything, that he’d surely regret.

-

Back in the motel room, he flings the folder aside and it explodes into a mass of white paper flying through the air. He collapses into bed with a groan. He isn’t sure if his injuries and stress have sunk right down to the marrow in his bones or if this is just what it’s like to grow older.

There’s no mess left behind other than a bit of water tracked through the carpet, even though he vividly remembers leaving a bloodbath behind. He’s losing it, he’s really losing it.

He lays in bed until his nausea fades. With another long sigh, he realizes he forgot to stop at the dry cleaners. He leans over the side of the bed and grabs at his bag.

He unties the plastic and pulls out his shirt. The blood has dried and turned brown, and the handprints stick out with clear contrast. Will has no doubt Hannibal did it on purpose. Just another art piece, marking Will in this way. There’s a dab of blood at the back of the collar, and there’s no getting away from the probability that it came off of Hannibal’s mouth.

Unable to look at it anymore, he throws it to the side and turns over roughly, pulling the blankets up to his chin.

He might have been able to handle everything if it weren’t for the eyes on him. 

Everyone looks at him and recognizes a different person. There are hundreds of men with his face existing in hundreds of minds, whether it’s compassion or evil behind his eyes. He doesn’t recognize a single one, and he’s starting to drown in the facades.

Now his face is online again, and he can expect glances as he walks through the street, whether it’s real or only in his mind. He can expect all of his colleagues to step carefully around him and whisper from the other rooms.

He wishes he could erase every perception and fade into nothingness.

At least when he was alone with his dogs, there was peace in the quiet of the woods. 

Married life might not be for him, or fatherhood. Or maybe more accurately, he might not be good for them. 

He could go deeper into the woods, live nomadically so no one would ever know him. He could get back on his boat abandoned somewhere across the Atlantic, but he worries that association, too, has been ruined. 

He’s full of desire but not of the ability to take. Something always hurting, something always missing, and he can’t tell anymore if it has always been this way.

Being pulled into Hannibal’s cell changed everything. Now he knows what Hannibal’s days look like. Days filled with the activities that used to make everything feel okay. Altering his face and his words to appease the security cameras and the hatred beyond them. Not a ray of sunshine on his skin, not a moment to relax. 

But still, Hannibal is _Hannibal._ The skin he used to wear has been shed. He is the person Will knew long ago, built up with layers of bitterness, but him nonetheless. And for a moment behind those walls, Will saw his other worlds. Behind bars or free to roam the streets, there’s nothing quite like Hannibal reaching inside of him again.

Something presses against his back, and he tries to shift away from the knot in his muscle. It happens again and feels unsettlingly like real touch. He stills and waits.

Just as he decides it’s a facet of his exhaustion, he feels it again, harder, pressing against his spine. He imagines a rat burrowed into the mattress, looking for an escape. He lifts up on one elbow and stares at the spot where something is wiggling around below the sheets, like it’s trying to break through.

It starts happening near his elbow, so he lifts up on all fours. He watches the lumps press up against the off-white sheets in confusion.

It isn’t until the sheet rips that he tries to move off the bed, but something grabs his arm first. He yanks out of it without much difficulty, it’s _slick,_ but then something grabs his other arm and yanks him down. Barely catching himself on his elbows, he can see flashes of bright red escape through tears in the sheets. 

Something grabs his neck and yanks him down against the bed, and it’s only in that stillness that he can make out a dozen bloody hands reaching through the torn mattress. His eyes can barely track the movement as he tries to rip away and jerk back and forth, panting desperately. 

It takes everything in him to get his neck free so that he can lift up, but there are too many hands, all reaching and grabbing at him from his feet to his head. They wrap around his ankles and force down his shoulders until he faceplants into his pillow again. A hand sinks into the back of his head, getting a grip in his hair so he can’t turn his head away from being smothered into his pillow. He shrieks, but all that comes out is a muffled whine.

Unable to see anything anymore, he can only guess the number of hands reaching out from below the surface, holding his hips so he can’t squirm, crushing his ribs in a hug, bruising his wrists, and squeezing on the sides of his neck, grabbing and pressing along every few inches of his skin. 

He struggles weakly until he gets too tired and has to focus on breathing for a few minutes, the lack of air starting to make his lungs burn. 

“It’s not real, it’s not real,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. He tries to open them, _really_ open them, but he can’t escape this reality he has been put into.

When the hands feel like they’re loosening, he tries to squirm out and then they just pull tighter, like someone is letting all their weight hang down from him. He tries to scream for help, but he can barely breathe pressed down like this, not enough for a lungful of air where no one will even come for the rescue.

In a last bit of effort using all his might, he thrashes and kicks, but the hands hold him too tight, and he collapses down to let it happen, wait it out, whatever might come of him now.

The worst thing is, he can recognize these hands. He’s had these hands on him before, large and softer than anyone would expect, and the hair on the back of his neck stands straight with pinpricks of oversensitivity. It’s the perfect kind of torture to keep him here where everything feels like too much. 

He doesn’t know how to gauge the time passing here in the dark where all he can do is feel. Blood is smeared all over, and the hands slip and regrip, but it's not enough to escape and he’s sick of fighting.

At a blaring ring in his ear, he jumps, and his head lifts up without restraint. All of his limbs are suddenly untouched, but there’s a strange tingling sensation where all the fingers once were. His cellphone is going off somewhere, but it eventually stops and he relaxes his muscles. 

He looks down at himself, expecting to see blood or at least places where his skin has gone white from being squeezed, but all that’s there is a thin sheen of sweat and drool on his pillow. 

The phone rings again, and he lets it go, waiting for the noise to stop grating at his brain.

His skin feels empty. He cradles his left arm and strokes over the sensitive skin of his wrist, hoping it might stave off the panic that’s been building for a while now. It doesn’t.

He curls up his knees and puts his head down between. With both hands, he massages the back of his neck. Molly would do this for him sometimes, and it isn’t the same with his own hands. It feels like he has no other option; all the way down to his bones is the vivid sensation that he _needs_ something, that he might just rip right out of his skin instead. It’s bad, it’s gotten so bad, in only one day everything in his life _unravelled_.

The phone blares again, and he rips the blankets off angrily, stumbling across the room to find what pocket of his bag it's in. Jack’s name pops up, and it takes Will two more rings to gain the willpower to answer it. 

“What?” he snaps.

Jack speaks loud enough that Will has to hold the phone away from his ear. “Christ, Will, where the hell have you been? You need to get to the hospital. It’s your wife.”

“Molly?”

“The Tooth Fairy, he—”

Will hangs up. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” he shouts emphatically, shoving his feet in his shoes. He looks through the curtains and is shocked to see darkness beyond. He doesn’t know how long he was trapped in that nightmare, but he doesn’t feel like he’s rested for even a second.

The blood is back, so many fingerprints smeared across him, and he can’t get it out of his mind because he knows who did this, really. Not the Tooth Fairy, not simple cruelty. He’s marking his life, again and again, _tainting_ it, barely a spot left to claim. 

The blood isn’t real, he knows this, but it still makes it hard to leave his front door and drive to the hospital to see his wife in whatever condition she may be left in.

-

He supports his head on one arm leaning on Molly’s hospital bed, and with his other hand, strokes circles into his own cheek. It feels nice without his beard, and it’s the only thing he can think of to soothe himself.

He isn’t sure if Jack and Walter are still in the waiting room, but he’s grateful to have escaped the stilted conversations. Everything is piling on more and more, and he doesn’t know what else he can take. His kid asking if he’s a murderer, his inability to reply, Jack’s disappointment and mistrust, the Tattle Crime tabloids in the waiting room, his wife looking pale and broken because of _him._ And maybe the worst of it is that he doesn’t have enough room in himself to care as much as they deserve.

Molly has awoken a few times already, asked about Walter, stared confusedly at his bare face, mumbled obscure comments from her dreams and fallen back into slumber each time. This time, she stirs for a while, and when her eyes open, they stay open. 

Will tries to blink back into the present for her but doesn’t know how well he’ll be able to make it when his feet are slipping on a pool of blood below his feet.

“Molly. Can I grab you anything?” he asks, shifting to rub at his forearms.

She shakes her head.

“How do you feel?”

“Like there’s a hole right through me.” A small smile, which he returns on instinct. He watches it fade off of her face and follows suit. 

She stares at him for a long while.

“You look different. You seem different. You said you wouldn’t be the same when you came home, but I look at you, and I don’t know who I’m seeing at all,” Molly says, voice weak and raspy.

“I’m still here,” he insists.

“It was Hannibal, wasn’t it? That did this?” she asks.

Slowly, he nods. “He, um, suggested it. Urged him to do it.”

“Oh, that’s a clammy, sick feeling.” 

He thinks he should hold her hand, comfort her somehow, but her arms are tucked up under the blanket, and his are still clasped at his forearms. 

“I know.”

“I knew it was him. Ever since I saw your face in that newspaper, I knew.”

“I hate this, Molly. I’m sorry.”

“You never told me anything.” 

“Never told you what?” 

“I don’t know. That’s the thing. What do I even ask? You’ll hate me for anything I ask.” 

“I won’t hate you. I would never.” He furrows his eyebrows.

“You won’t hate me, no. But you will shut down at any mention, like the flip of a switch. I’m easy. You like that I’m easy. Don’t you think I know that men love how easy I am? I’m a catch. You know what kind of men love women who don’t nag them?”

Will feels dizzy at the conversation. He puts his forehead down against the sheets by her arm. 

“Liars, that’s who. You seem so different, Will. But maybe you were just different to me?” 

“Maybe I just don’t know who I am,” he says bitterly.

“I blamed myself for a few minutes there, thinking about how I told you to go, _wanted_ you to go. I was angry at Jack Crawford for a while. I got real mad. But you know I can tell when you leave pieces missing? Things you don’t want to talk about. Then I see the papers, and there’s all this stuff and—” She stops and breathes in deeply.

Will looks down at his hands. a couple drops of blood fall onto his thumbs. He rubs it off, and then below, he catches sight of blood bleeding through his shirt, from the inside out, right at his ribs. 

He needs to go. He needs to go right now.

“It’s tough to hold onto anything good. It’s all so slippery,” Molly whispers, oblivious to his bleeding out.

_Slick as hell,_ he thinks, and blood pours down the back of his neck like a finger stroking down his skin. He stands abruptly, scraping the chair against the floor and giving Molly a start. He avoids her eyes, but he knows they must look shocked at his movement. His own lip quivers, and it takes a moment to get the words out.

“I’m sorry, I’m really so sorry, Molly. I—I need to go, but I’m going to catch him, okay? I just… can’t do this right now.”

He turns and walks before she can speak, before he leaves blood pooling her hospital room too.

-

Will is relieved to find the same guard from before at reception to the BSHCI. He stomps right up to the counter and waits expectantly. The man stares at him with wide eyes.

When Will doesn’t say anything, he starts scrambling to explain. “Doctor Bloom said we need to get permission for any clearance…” 

“I’m not asking you.”

“I’m not allowed to—”

Will leans his elbows on the counter. “You closed the cell door on me. I think this is the least you can do if you don’t want to face a different set of consequences.”

He storms down the hallway in the next minute, straight for Hannibal’s cell. 

Will knows if he stops, he will have a mental breakdown, so he pumps his legs faster and faster, even though he’s starting to feel his instability like pinpricks on his skin. He doesn’t know if he’s angry, he doesn’t know if he has anything to say, he just needs to be in front of Hannibal again. Some part of him is hoping this may halt the hallucinations.

And soon enough, he’s staring straight at Hannibal, glass obscuring his features with the overlay of his own reflection.

The fiery intensity he came storming in with recedes, and he stands silently. His eyes twitch away from Hannibal, distracted by the vast emptiness of the cell. No drawings, no toilet seat, no mattress. And no books. That last piece of familiarity, scraped out until the entire room is so drab it seems to steal from his own spirit. 

He doesn’t want to make eye contact again. Not now that he’s felt how deep Hannibal burrowed in his mind. 

It isn’t smart to let Hannibal see that vulnerability, though, so he forces eye contact and catches Hannibal’s small, pleased smile.

“How’s the wi—”

“Don’t,” Will snaps. 

Hannibal tilts his head. “Is this not a confrontation?”

“This weird jealousy of yours has gone too far, _way_ too far. You don’t get this part of my life,” he says.

“You don’t blame me, though, do you? Their blood is on your hands.”

Will does get a flash of anger then, which he recognizes in the pit of his stomach with dread that his guilt has resurfaced. That he broke so badly back there with his life because Hannibal couldn’t help but dip his fingers in.

“They’re alive.”

He catches the disappointment flit across Hannibal’s face.

“Not to you, though,” Hannibal says.

“You have _no_ right to—”

“You failed them. You already know you did. When did your indiscretion begin, in your eyes, that is? Was it when you came here and didn’t try hard enough? Tonight when you didn’t care enough? Perhaps when you married her, you knew the danger. I hope you know I don’t blame you for wanting to fill your loneliness.”

Will lets out a bitter laugh. “You want to talk about loneliness now? You with these four walls for company?”

“We’ve both been alone.”  
  
Will shakes his head. “I haven’t been as lonely as you.”

“Is a warm body really enough?”

“It sure is something. You so badly want it to be true that I sat around for the last few years crying about you, but I was _fine._ Things were _good,_ ” Will says, spinning on his heel and pacing down the line of the glass before turning and coming back. Hannibal stays still but tracks his movements.

“You’re not fine now. Why’s that?”

“It’s been a real shit time since your stunt, you know that? I want to know when exactly it was that you made it your life's mission to make _my_ life as difficult as possible,” he spits out.

“What has been difficult?”

“Fucking Lounds got a hold of the story, she _hid_ in a hallway somewhere and snapped a picture of the blood you got on me, and now everyone’s gotta have a different opinion on who I am and what I want and what I need. That was really fucked up what you did to me, you know?” He taps his fingers together down by his hip and continues to pace.

“It was a nice break, though, wasn’t it?” Hannibal smiles and it looks strangely innocent.

He stops. “ _Nice?_ No, that was not _nice_ for me, not in any way.”

“Is there not something relieving about being understood again? Beneath the pain of exposure is the ability to relax your features, and doesn’t it hurt to strain so much?”

“Oh,” he laughs bitterly and starts to pace in quick turns again. “Don’t think you’re not in the category of people trying to cram their opinions of me into my skull. You’re one of the worst offenders.”

“Worst because it’s everything you don’t want to hear?”

“Always trying to get under my skin, _always._ Are you pleased with yourself? Two days straight wreaking havoc, must be a nice change from the years of banality, some good entertainment, huh?” 

“I have bothered you a great deal this time, clearly. Come here.”

“No. Why?” 

“You’re trying to get your anxiety out through movement and anger. It’s only going to build.”

Will stands away from the glass at an angle, so he doesn’t have to look straight at Hannibal. “How should I feel if not angry? You put a hit out on my family.”

“There is no _should_ here. It’s that you’re lying about how you feel. Is the shame so great that you couldn’t be a good husband, a good dad?”

“You know nothing about it.”

“I know _you_.”

Will steps up close to the glass. “You know what you want to believe.”

Hannibal considers him for a moment. Will holds his gaze, challenging, but Hannibal’s eyes turn elsewhere.

“You look handsome,” Hannibal finally says with a small smile. 

“ _What?_ ” Will squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head slightly.

“But I doubt it was a sudden urge for an aesthetic change that made you shave for the first time in years. What did your imagination show you?”

Will stays quiet.

“The blood I got on you, why did that bother you so much?”

He looks up at the glass and can see his reflection just slightly off centre, as though Hannibal stood right behind his shoulder. A breath ghosts against the back of his neck so vividly that he can feel the heat of Hannibal standing behind him. Two hands settle on his ribs.

He squeezes his eyes shut and finds balance by grabbing onto the edges of the holes in the glass, leaning his weight into it and away from the ghost at his back. He breathes in and out heavily.

“I’m feeling unstable again,” he whispers, and despite it all, it feels good to say out loud.

“I know. You know why it’s so bad? It’s because you’re trying to run from it, trying so hard to squeeze your eyes shut so that the light behind your eyelids are warning signals instead of stars. Open your eyes, Will.”

Will grips harder and stares at the glass between them instead of Hannibal. It would be so much easier if he could just get angry, but something inside of him is slipping, and there’s blood running down his back, warm.

Something touches his knuckles where he’s still holding onto the glass, and he stops breathing on his out-breath. He doesn’t need to look down to see Hannibal’s hand covering his. He got too close to the glass.

There’s the distinct noise of blood splatting to the floor at his feet, and he has to focus on keeping his legs steady so he doesn’t slip. 

He needs to let go. There are cameras on them, and even worse, Hannibal will keep pushing and pushing, and he’ll never stop—

“I’m happy you came to me for help. They will try hard to control you and me from now on. I hope it’s a comfort to know I’m close.”

“That’s not a comfort. How is that a comfort?”

“Did having blood on you feel that good that you haven’t had the strength to wash it off?”

His skin tingles, and on his hand is the distinct feeling of Hannibal’s forefinger rubbing across the back of his knuckles.

His vision blurs out until all he sees is shapes and colours, and when he focuses back in and looks at Hannibal, there’s blood dripping from his mouth and streaking down his neck, staining his prison outfit. 

Will rips away, stumbling back a few steps. When he gains balance again, he keeps the momentum going and keeps walking to the door. 

“Will!” Hannibal calls. 

Will falters for one moment. A hint of desperation slipped into Hannibal’s voice, something that Hannibal has probably worked hard to keep in. It slipped, Will caught it. Turning enough only to see his peripheral in the large, empty cell, he feels something catch in his throat and then keeps walking again, but Hannibal doesn’t call again.

-

-

-

He turns his face away when he replies so Jack won’t be able to see his bloodshot eyes. Sleep hasn’t come for a long while. 

“ _Hannibal_ would be the best bait,” he says. He sneaks a glance to the side. There’s an infuriating kind of longing between his ribs right where the wounds in his mind refuse to close anymore.

He listens to Jack sigh, and then to a few moments of silence that is so much worse.

“No. Off the table. And I’m not discussing it anymore.” He walks away from Will. 

The distance between them only grows these days. Will wonders if it’s fear that Jack has brewing, why he spends so much time in a different room these days. He doesn’t want to imagine the conversations Jack’s had with Alana, doesn't particularly want to look either of them in the eye, not after his mistake of visiting Hannibal again.

He throws his bag to the side in his motel room when he gets back. Everything is a mess, clothes strewn about and garbage piling up because he’s had the do not disturb sign on for days now. The hallucinations haven’t stopped, and his brain is telling him to hide it all in. He kicks through his things and pulls off the shirt he wore to work.

He shrugs on a different shirt, feels the stiff texture of dried blood on the fabric rubbing against his ribs, and the slight coppery smell that won’t go away. He buttons it up tighter and feels it squeeze on either side of him. And then it begins to pull and pull and pull.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is starting to feel more stable, but how long that lasts is another story.

His foot taps beneath the counter in rapid succession, not stopping even when someone glares at him from the next table over.

When Molly steps inside, he stands and goes to help her, but she waves him away. A bit awkward, he backs up into his seat and crosses his arms on the table until she’s settled.

“Hey. How are you?” Will asks.

“Depends on if they had almond milk,” she says, lifting off the lid of the cup sitting on her side of the table and peering inside.

“Then it’s a good day.”

“And you?”  
  


“They got my extremely difficult coffee order right.”

“Good, good. We done here, then?”

He huffs out a laugh without much behind it and wraps his hands around the warmth of his cup.

She sighs. “Well, I’m healing good. I haven’t told Walter because he’s been so good doing all the chores for his poor old mom.”

“If you need any other help...”

“C’mon, Will.”

“I could even pay for someone to—”

“Seriously?” she looks annoyed.

He winces. “You’re right. Sorry.”

“And how’s the case? Any closer to swiping the fucker?”

“Where’d that terminology come from?”

“A lot of TV recently. I’ll need to get your input on some of these theories later, see if you’re as smart as Matthew Gray Gubler.” She shifts in her seat, and Will stares at the strain still in her collar.

“You’ve been following the news, too?”

“Too much, maybe.”

“I promise you guys are still safe. But there’s nothing much else. Doing some house calls in affluent neighbourhoods in the area.”

“And that psychiatrist that got burned? Damn. I don’t know how he’s alive.”

“I know. I talked to him. He’s not looking good.” Will stares at the table and rubs his beard, all grown back to normal now.

“Someone should just put him out of his misery.”

Will nods.

“Now, why don’t you tell me how _you’re_ really doing?” she says.

Will clears his throat. “It probably sounds pretty unstable to insist that I’m feeling stable again, huh?”

“Little bit.”

“I am, though. I went to see Hannibal one more time after…” he gestures at her. “I realized how much he was getting under my skin. He’s good at that. So I’m not going to see him. Ever again if I can help it. Not that Jack or Alana would allow it, he’s going to see nobody and hear nothing from now on.”

“Pretty sad life.”

“Yeah, well.” He gulps. “Think he deserves it by now.”

“Why’d you want to see me now?”

“I thought, if nothing else, I owed you some truth, anything you want to know. And I need to apologize for how I acted in the hospital. I’m so sorry, I am.”

“Got that right,” she mutters. Her foot taps under the table, shaking the table slightly, and he realizes where he picked up the habit from.

“You said I haven’t told you things. I want to be completely honest, what ever it might be. So I thought I’d ask… is there anything, in particular, you want to know? Or...”

“Uh. Well, Hannibal…” 

He finds it strange to see her mouth shape around his name.

“Mhm?” 

She hesitates, tilting her head back and forth like she’s weighing what to say. “‘Hannibal full stop’ might just be my question.”

He chuckles. “All right. Uh. You know he gave me the scars. You know I tried to catch him. That we worked together for a time.”

“Uh-huh.”

He clears his throat. “We were good friends before.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I didn’t have many friends.”

“I’m shocked.”

“I know. But it felt like he understood me better than most. Kind of my psychiatrist, but it was unconventional—more just conversations. I usually visited to talk about whatever case I was on, but he’d sometimes ask me more personal questions. Or we’d just talk about anything. It was strangely easy, and it was _nice_. I trusted him, even when I had that health scare. He knew that I trusted him.”

“You were close, then.”

“Yep.”

“And he broke that trust, I’m assuming?”

Will squeezes his lips together in a bitter smile. “Yeah. It was a shit time, losing that paddle. He was still so in my orbit, you know? I wanted it back to normal, but he wasn’t ever normal.”

She picks at her coffee cup with her fingernails. “I don’t know if it’s just that tabloid worming its way into my brain, but why does it sound like you’re telling me about a crazy ex now?”

He sucks in a breath. “It was never like that. Maybe… a bit more… intimate? Than your average friendship.” He cringes, but he already promised himself he’d be as honest as possible for her.

“The tabloids say it was passionate.”

“Lounds’ knows nothing of it.”

“It wasn’t then?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying what _she_ says is bullshit clickbait trash that’s better suited for pop culture magazines than an important field like criminal justice.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. So? What was up with the blood he got all over you? What happened in there?”

Will shifts in his seat. “He just grabbed me. Didn’t try to hurt me, he just isn’t good at boundaries.”

“There can be pretty intense love in a friendship like that.”

“If Hannibal loves, he doesn’t love in a way that I understand.” 

“But _you_ can love. That’s what I understand of you.” 

“Not—no… it…” He sighs. “You get confused about what you’re feeling. There’s this way about him, you feel like you’re getting lost in it all. You want to go, you want to believe in the fairytale, and you want to trust him. It feels like the world beats for Hannibal Lecter, and it can be… strangely appealing.”

“Look at that, I finally got some real deep truth out of you.”

“I’m trying,” he smiles bitterly, feeling his face warm.

Molly takes his hand off of his coffee cup and holds it. He’s surprised, but the touch is something he realizes he missed.

“I don’t know exactly how you’re feeling, but I do know shame, and I recognize shame when I see it. There’s so much shame in the world. It’s okay if feelings got complicated, all right? Or if you still like the guy in some ways. You must know I’d never blame you for that. Everyone says he was charming, and someone’s gotta have depth to understand a guy like you, and he clearly did.” 

Will blinks. “Thank you.”

“And you know, sometimes I think that everyone is at least a little gay.”

“Molly!” He breathes out a surprised laugh and shakes his head, covering his face with his free hand.

“Listen, I’m just _saying_ if the opportunity arises, a lot can happen! But that love in any form is never the thing to be ashamed of.” She squeezes his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he says breathily.

“So what now?” she asks.

He covers their hands with his other and squeezes. He thinks for a moment, gulping back something hard in his throat and avoiding Molly’s eyes. “I do want things to be the same as before. It’s been hard alone out here.”

She hesitates but quietly says, “me too.”

“I need to catch him first.”

“No, I know.”

“But maybe with a little space, we can keep…”

“Yeah. We’ll talk.”

-

Zeller and Price are muttering between themselves when Will enters the lab, holding up charts over a large, red figure.

“Hey, Will. Did the retests. They’re on the side over there, but nothing new,” Zeller says, waving vaguely.

“And what happened here?”

“Another case moving to our division. It’s like no one can skin their murder victim just once and be done with it these days,” Price says.

“The one from North Carolina?” Will asks, tilting his head to stare at the exposed flesh of the corpse.

“Yep. There was another in West Virginia this time. What the hell is in West Virginia?” Zeller says.

“Some Appalachian folk music as I hear it. You ever heard a real good fiddle? It’s an experience,” Price says.

“They’re calling him ‘Buffalo Bill,’” Zeller says, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

“What does that mean?” Will asks. He gets closer to the body, where he can see every detail in the bumpy flesh, skin carefully peeled away and discarded.

“Not a tasteful joke if you ask me,” Price says. “It’s because he ‘skins his humps.’”

Will shakes his head in disapproval.

“Can I see the report? I could try to help.”

He hears Jack’s voice from the doorway and tries to keep the annoyance off his face.

“It was hard enough to make you come out for one case, now you want another?” Jack asks.

“I’m sitting around staring at the same files, Jack. Might as well make myself useful.”

“I can’t have your attention wavering from the Red Dragon.”

“Attention, where? We’re not going to get anything until the next murder.”

Jack glares. “What did I bring you here for then?”

“I’ve been struggling, I know. I got coffee with Molly this morning, I’m starting to feel like myself again. At least marginally.”

Jack softens slightly. “Good for you, Will. I’m glad to hear that.”

“Buffalo Bill isn’t going to wait for the Red Dragon to wrap up. Let me get my head back into it with this,” Will says.

“Fine. No consultations, just stick to the paperwork this time.”

Jack runs his eyes over the body, then breathes deeply in a way that lets Will know the volcano is bubbling. He leaves the way he came.

“Not the favourite anymore, huh?” Zeller says. “How’s it feel to join the pack of disappointments?”

Will smiles cordially, taking the file Price hands over. “Back in the day, being the favourite meant the shittiest working conditions.”

“You can say that again. We’re not even allowed to attend the meetings anymore. It’s great,” Price says.

Will leans against the desk and scans the file carefully, letting their voices fade into the background. He checks the side of his neck for blood, but there is none, not right now. 

For a few days, he manages to lose himself in the case, and his skin stays dry. But he can’t be sure anymore how long that feeling will last.

-

He scrubs at the washroom sink in the motel room with complimentary soap and the extra hand towel. Without letting the maid service in, his room has turned filthy, but more than that, he just needs something to do with his hands. 

He’s scrubbed the porcelain down to slick smoothness, and his arm burns. He wipes at the moistness on his forehead with the back of his arm and looks for any dirty spots left. When it only sparkles up at him, he turns his eyes to the vinyl flooring and gently gets down on his knees.

Her voice grates in his head over and over again, and he knows it will never leave him again. 

_Could he daily—_

He scrubs harder and grits his teeth. 

It isn’t a surprise. It couldn’t be after his relentless dreams spelling out that very possibility to his subconscious. It couldn’t be after running through every possible train of thought, staring out at the ocean waves. It shouldn’t surprise him. It shouldn’t rattle him from the inside out.

Some things are better left to the deep corners of his mind. Speaking it aloud makes it solidify until he can taste it on his tongue. Vivid ideas from the depth of his imagination fire at his head, and he flinches at each one. 

It is so clearly the context of what underlies everything they’ve been together. Hannibal’s love, however that may manifest. Some part of him had always doubted it still. That Hannibal could have seen every cruel thought, every slippery trait, every misstep, and still felt something pure. 

If it turned out to be a long-game to mess with him, Will would have believed it. If it turned out to be a simple infatuation with his capacity for darkness, he would have believed it. 

It’s this option, that he feels so clearly down to his bones and knows without a doubt, that is so unbelievable he can’t even let it into his mind without every brain cell shutting down like all the lightbulbs in the world have burnt out at once. 

He scrubs at the grout with all his strength. There’s blood in every crevice. He could keep cleaning for his entire life and never see the last of it. 

When a bead of sweat drips from his head to the floor, he flops backward onto his ass and breathes for a few minutes. He brings his hand to his mouth and begins to mindlessly brush his knuckles against the sensitive skin of his lips.

He waits for the feelings to pass. 

-

“So. You gonna catch _this_ monster then?” Molly asks.

He appreciates that she hasn’t brought up his job all evening, but he can scarcely blame her for giving in to the curiosity when her wine has kicked in enough. Her eyelids droop more and more by the minute, and her tongue is loose like it was before.

Already two weeks have passed, one other victim found with a lot of evidence but little that leads them anywhere. Will isn’t suffering particularly with this case. Not _yet,_ that is.

“Pretty sure I am.” 

“Buffalo Bill. Weird name. I got an uncle named Bill. And third victim already, huh? I’m glad it wasn’t this one that came after me.” She fake shivers. “Can you imagine being skinned?”

“I’d really rather not.” He stares into his wine glass—the last of the cheap Pinot from the liquor store.

“No kidding. I don’t know how you do it sometimes.”

“It feels good to give bad people what they deserve.” 

“Day what-the-hell-ever of Hannibal Lecter being locked up, and day less-than-that-but-it’s-still-great of you being stable and staying away from him.”

He laughs. “You can say that again.” He clinks their wine together and finishes it in a gulp, slouching deeper into the couch.

“I don’t know if I could, actually.” Her head slowly dips forward a few inches before she sits up alert again. He smiles fondly.

“Perhaps I should let you sleep now,” Will mutters.

“Yeah,” she says, drawing out the word. “I’m beat.”

He cradles the empty glass against his chest and frowns. “I should get a taxi.”

She stays quiet. Will waits for a few moments and then sits up with a groan and leans forward on his knees to look back at her with raised eyebrows.

“Just get in bed,” she says, sounding defeated.

“Yeah?”

She nods, then pushes herself up and disappears into the bathroom. 

He strips into his boxers and undershirt and folds them up to leave on the table. He crawls under the covers and waits. 

There’s a stark familiarity to it. Waiting for Molly to finish her wine and come to bed. He never spoke it aloud, but there was a long while he couldn’t sleep alone, couldn’t relax without fingers in his hair, and couldn’t stave off the nightmares without her to hold.

She emerges and flops right next to him.

“We’re not having sex tonight, so don’t try anything,” she says, eyes already closed. 

He half-smiles in understanding. “All right.” 

“Maybe next time if you buy better wine.”

He laughs. He leans forward on instinct and then stops.

She sighs and shuffles down a bit. Will rests his cheek against the top of her shoulder and finds her hand under the sheets. Something unlodges in his throat, and he feels like he can breathe a bit better with something warm against his skin.

“I’m glad you’re trying, Will,” she says, voice barely a whisper.

He nods against her.

“It’s been lonely in a bed alone, hasn’t it?”

He sighs. “It really has been.”

“Well, this is nice to have you back. The normal you. I missed him.”

He stares sadly up at her face as she drifts into sleep. 

There is probably something to be said about the world and fairness that he was able to find his best friend even though he really didn’t deserve to.

He lets a few minutes pass by, and then, hesitantly, he snaps his fingers by her ear.

-

“Oh. Hell.” Will stops in his tracks in the doorway to the lab.

“That sounds about right,” Price says.

Jack is staring at the victim, arms crossed and hands gripping his own biceps.

The victim is skinned as usual, but this time the body is impaled dozens of times over. Will walks around the table, taking note of each tool placed in the same pattern as the Chesapeake Ripper.

“Why didn’t you call me to the scene?” Will asks, looking at Jack with furrowed eyebrows. He meets Will’s gaze with a stern look.

“I’m going to need to confirm where you were last night.”

Will stares at him for another moment and then scoffs, shaking his head. He stares at the victim while he speaks. “Really, Jack?”

“Don’t shoot me for needing to cover my bases. Another serial killer who idolizes Hannibal Lecter? Who got a hold of those unreleased reports?”

“He’s notorious, what do you expect?”

“Why don’t you answer my question, Will. Can anyone confirm where you were?”

Will sees Price and Zeller shuffle uncomfortably on the spot in the corner of his eye.

“You can ask my wife,” Will says bitterly.

“Trust me when I say I don’t believe it, but I can’t leave any cracks open, or I’d never sleep at night. Now you gotta give me something.” He gestures toward the lab table. “Anything. Do these psychos want Hannibal, or do they want to be him?”

“I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive.”

“It’s only one day before the full moon. Is he trying to overwhelm us by matching up with the Red Dragon?”

“Very likely. Clearly is an avid reader of crime reports,” Will says.

Will stares at the body and twitches slightly. He rubs at the back of his neck.

“You feeling okay?” Zeller asks. 

The same panic from before is starting to itch up his neck, and he feels hyper-aware of the eyes on him. This can’t happen now. He’s been doing too good, but Hannibal’s memory is laced all over the bloody, mutilated body in front of him.  
  


“Fine. The faster we can figure this out, the better. Where was it? Who are they?” 

Any response is interrupted by the door opening, and a young woman steps inside with a short knock.

“Starling? I asked for a _report_. What is it now?” Jack asks.

“They asked me to come tell you, sir.” She hesitates for one moment. Trying not to be intimidated, Will suspects. 

“The senator’s daughter is missing, and she thinks it might be Buffalo Bill.” She looks down at the folders in her arms and finds a piece of paper to pass to Jack. “She wants a meeting with you. Senator Martin, that is.”

Jack takes the sheet of paper and then pinches the bridge of his nose for a long moment.

“And anything from Lecter?” he asks. Will perks up.

“I have the report here—but no, not exactly. One comment.”

“Which was?”

“‘This is my kind of person.’”

“What?” Jack says.

“Doctor Lecter said Buffalo Bill is ‘his kind of person.’” Her eyes skirt to the body on the lab table and back again. “And that he’ll only talk about the case with Will Graham.”

“Great,” Jack says in a tone that suggests the exact opposite. 

Will breathes out a laugh through his nose.

“You find this funny?” Jack asks, the volume of his voice spiking. Starling manages to not flinch.

“I don’t know what you expected. Let’s be real, Jack. You’re going to give in and use him for bait one of these days. Might as well do it before more bodies drop,” Will says.

Jack enunciates each syllable when he speaks next. “Don’t tell me what I’m going to do.” 

“Are you going to authorize me to talk to Hannibal?” 

“No. If you want to work on this case, you work on it alone, or you can go ahead and retire again. I’m sick of your attitude.”

Jack stares at Will with disdain, and Will pretends not to notice. He looks at the woman, Starling, who can’t be any older than his students were.

“You’re sending young grads to Hannibal now, Jack? Is that who will replace me? He’s going to eat them alive.”

Silence follows, and he internally scolds himself for his wording. Starling stands a bit straighter and then walks forward, putting her hand out to Will.

“I’m Clarice Starling. The reports of how you caught him were fascinating, but I haven’t been able to piece together why exactly he turned himself in?”

Will laughs and rubs at his beard instead of shaking her hand. She puts it down but doesn’t move away.

“Did you let him rattle you?” he asks.

“No, sir,” she says. “And he was respectful.”

“Yeah, he seems that way, doesn’t he? You’d better not return. Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head. Jack, if I could get the crime scene photos and be left alone with the body, this would go a lot better. Sounds like you have a meeting.”

The room is tense and it takes a few moments for everyone to clear out, eyeing at him suspiciously. It’s easy to ignore them when he’s so caught up with the lively, attentive energy of the young woman who he knows Hannibal probably thought was intriguing. The idea leaves a bad taste in his mouth. 

She leaves the room, and he steps closer to admire the work done on the victim.

-

Will leans over the sink surrounded by the red walls of the Bureau bathroom, splashing water up onto the side of his neck. The water runs red without any sign of stopping. He stops abruptly and stares in the mirror. The handprints will never really leave, he thinks. But this time, there’s blood dripping from his mouth, and he doesn’t know how to hide that.

He came so close, _so close_. The full moon is on the horizon, and then it will all be over. It has to be, it has to end before he bleeds out completely.

He stares at himself and rubs his finger gently across his own knuckles, trying to soothe whatever is rumbling inside of him.

Steps march into the washroom, and Will jumps, but it’s only Zeller holding open the door.

“Your presence is now required. And be warned, Jack’s gone fucking _haywire_ this time.”

“Why?” Will follows immediately, finding some paper towels and wiping at his face.

“I don’t know, but it’s bad. Seems like more than a plain old shitty meeting.”

Will has to walk fast to keep up Zeller’s stride. They enter Jack’s office, where he’s standing behind the desk, clutching the wood. He sees Will and Zeller and begins talking immediately. 

“Here’s the deal,” he says, sticking his finger at a report on his desk and voice travelling strong through the room. “The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane intercepted a letter supposedly from Buffalo Bill to Hannibal Lecter outlining his admiration, and his plan to take senator Martin’s daughter—sent _before_ the mayor’s daughter went missing. She’s been missing for less than a day, and she’s not going to be missing for another one, or you’ll all be sorry. This is _done_ before the full moon, you hear me?”

“He doesn’t wait long to kill them,” Will says.

“Hannibal said he’ll only talk to you. You talk to him about the case and nothing else, think you can manage to behave yourselves for that long?”

Will has gotten used to the look of disdain, of the complete lack of trust now in Jack’s gaze, that he just stares back in challenge.

“ _Go,_ ” Jack barks, and Will turns and leaves. On his way to see Hannibal again. And already, he doesn’t know if it’s sweat or blood dripping down the back of his neck.

-

Will takes a few long breaths before entering the room with Hannibal’s cell. He knows he needs a lot more than a few breaths right now. 

The weeks have passed by slow enough that it feels like years. A similar feeling sits in Will’s gut as when he first arrived to see Hannibal standing behind the glass. The terrifying expectation of what’s to come. Except this time, there’s a lot more banking on one single conversation.

Hannibal is already close to the glass, looking at the entryway expectantly when Will passes the threshold inside. He puts his hands behind his back and offers a surprisingly genuine smile, a flash of teeth and wide eyes.

Will steps to the glass and watches Hannibal breathe deeply and run his eyes over Will’s face.

“There you are. I have been waiting a long time,” Hannibal finally says in a sigh. 

The room is still empty of his books, drawings, mattress, toilet, anything at all, making Will feel a little sick inside to think about the long weeks that have passed. Cold slat for a bed, nothing to turn to for distraction. He runs his eyes along the empty shelves to avoid Hannibal’s gaze. 

“You already saw the case file, and here I am. Tell me what you know about Buffalo Bill,” Will says.

“What is it that made our friends allow you to see me? Are things escalating?”

Will pulls a photo out of his folder and presses it against the glass. With the light in the cell, he can see the reversed outline of the skinned body with the Wound Man tableau.

Hannibal leans in close. After a few moments, Will puts it away again. Hannibal looks pleased.

“Well?” Will asks.

“I’m flattered. I like him. Far more interesting than our dragon, wouldn’t you say?”

Will waits, not letting his face change. He thought it would be easier to return after distancing himself so much, but already he feels a breath on the back of his neck. He focuses his eyes on the glass in front of him and waits.

Hannibal steps forward more, his face nearly touching the glass. “Who is that?”

“What?”

“Citrus shampoo and a touch of women's brand deodorant. Your wife?”

Will squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t do this, Hannibal.” 

“Was the loneliness that unbearable again? This handful of weeks has stretched. One doesn’t crave without a prior taste on their tongue.” Hannibal smiles a little sadly. Will stares at his throat to avoid his expectant eyes that are far more open than usual.

“I’m here to talk about the case and nothing else. If you don’t want to cooperate, I’ll leave _._ ”

“Is the comfort she gives you through touch? How empty you feel all the time, how you’ve begun to need to fill the place with other’s hands. It eventually falls flat when it isn’t attached to the emotions that you’re truly craving, though.”

He scoffs. “And what emotion might that be?” 

“Change. Don’t you crave it so deeply?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How difficult is it to look at her and think about what you could have?”

Will clenches his hands in fists, takes a long breath in, and slowly raises his gaze. 

“It’s kind of pathetic, you know.”

Hannibal tilts his head, a twitch that Will registers as surprise.

“Your relentless jealousy of my wife. Will you ever give it up?” Will asks.

Hannibal tilts his head up slightly and considers him with a slight shuffle on his feet. It isn’t often that Will sees Hannibal unsettled.

“I worry about you running from yourself. You deserve more than that, and likely your wife does as well,” Hannibal says.

Will laughs bitterly and then looks up at Hannibal again, catching his eyes. “Is this really all that keeps you going?”

Hannibal raises his eyebrows in question, plastering on a small, contrived smile, and Will watches his genuineness slip away to a mask of composure.

Will walks a few paces down the line of the glass, clutching at his folder enough to crinkle it. “Will you go your whole life believing I delight in wickedness? That I am just behind the door longing for it day after day? If you don’t believe it, then do you have to accept that you gave up your whole life for nothing?”

Hannibal continues to stare.

Will’s voice is starting to shake. “What is it, that you so badly want to stand where my wife stands? You want to be a _family_ ? Deep down, you know the truth, don’t you? You knew the only way to get rid of my current family was to put out a hit on them because _violence_ is what you understand, not love.”

Will stops moving, considers the gleam in Hannibal’s eyes. 

“You like to pretend that _change_ is so easy, but you don’t know that all the time I’m here, I can’t forget any of the past. It just _seeps_ into everything. It’s this same damn routine every time I’m here now, giving me the same speech in a new order of words, as though all the pain will go away if you will it to enough.” 

“I do not expect it to go away. I expect us to face it. The past will exist in our future endeavours, beneath the surface telling us what to do. Acceptance takes work, and it seems we still haven’t moved past forgiveness after all,” Hannibal says.

“You made me shower in Abigail’s blood,” Will spits. His arms are shaking visibly, and he feels something close to tears rise up his throat. He chokes over his words. “For a second there, I thought—I was ready to _beg._ She choked on her blood for so long next to me, so fucking long, and I tore open my gut trying to get to her. You ruined everything. _Everything,_ Hannibal. You think I didn’t want to turn back time? That I didn’t obsess over it? It took me months to accept that she was gone. You think I didn’t know that something could have been good? That maybe if you weren’t so goddamn hard to love we could have—”

Will cuts himself off, biting back too many words.

“I would give it all back if I could. I mourn what I took away just as much,” Hannibal says softly. Will can see the storm behind the calmness on his face, the twitch of his eye.

Will feels a tear slide down his cheek. “With equations? It doesn’t work that way. Maybe in another world, maybe in your head, but not here. I managed to return to reality in our time apart.”

“Reality isn’t as fun, is it?” Hannibal smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and Will doesn’t soften.

“I feel like I’ve lost so many years of my life.” Will scrubs a hand over his face, wiping at the wetness. “I don’t know why I came back. You got something that you wanted—I’m too scarred to ever truly forget you. But if I could choose to, I’d forget about you in a second.”

“Again and again, you deny us—”

Will’s voice raises until it echos in the room, and Hannibal goes quiet. “You don’t see that it’s a delusion, and I don’t know if you ever will.” 

“I may at times have appeared to have neglected your great capacity for compassion but nonetheless, I know you—”

“God, Hannibal, I’ve had enough. I can’t keep it in anymore. I’m here because you’ve _latched_ onto me with every single one of your schemes. At this point, it feels like you’re pissing on me to mark me as your property. You’re a fucking parasite with it, and you’re hung up with this fucking fairytale that we’re still going to run away together, but I can’t think of anything that sounds worse, and maybe if you truly cared about me, you could find it in you to recognize that I’ve moved on, or even be happy for me, God forbid. But you won’t because you don’t understand that.”

The trembling of his limbs is uncontrollable at this point, but he stays where he is, letting it shake him from the inside out. When he looks back to Hannibal, he sees the streak of a tear down his cheek. He sees his own anger and distance in the reflection of the glass.

“Are you going to help me with Buffalo Bill?” Will asks, quiet.

Hannibal’s arms hang down by his sides, and he stares at Will with a blank look. All the tenderness from before, hidden somewhere deep.

“No,” he says simply.

“All right, that’s it then. Goodbye, Hannibal.”

He stands in his spot for a moment more. It takes a lot in him to move his feet, more strength than he ever thought it would take, but it’s necessary. He’s expecting to hear his name called, almost hoping, needing it, something, _anything,_ but Hannibal stays quiet for once in his life as Will walks out the last door. It truly feels like the last time.

He pulls at the hair on his head and can almost pretend the prickling tears are from the pain. The blood is drying, thick and crusting over his skin.

-

When he steps into Jack’s office again at night, skin numb and heart buzzing, Alana is already there leaning against the desk. 

Jack pours another glass of whiskey and pushes it to the edge. Will picks it up and gulps it all back in one. He didn’t realize how desperately he needed a drink. 

They stay in silence for a few thoughtful moments, and Will revels in the warmth burning in his throat.

“I owe you an apology, Will,” Jack finally says, voice soft. “For how I’ve been treating you. If it makes you feel better, your wife ripped me a new one over the phone for being so suspicious. I needed that. I think I’m at my wits end here.”

“I know you guys see the tapes. I know how it looked before.” He steps forward and holds out his glass for Jack to refill.

“We know who Hannibal is, too,” Alana mutters.

“Sure do,” Will says.

“I shouldn’t have sent that Starling over. I read the report, how he dug right into her. That’s who he is. I know she’s a good one, I can feel it. But there’s always someone trying to claw in, isn’t there?” Jack says.

Will sighs, his hand shaking slightly. “Sometimes it feels like I can’t go on knowing he’s still alive. His presence in this world is too big. It _penetrates._ ”

He sees Jack and Alana exchange a glance.

Jack stands up, finishes his own glass, and sighs. 

“We’re pulling Hannibal out as bait tomorrow, whether he likes it or not. Can you do what needs to be done, Will?”

Will looks back and forth between them slowly. Alana looks hesitant, standing stiffly. Jack looks hopeful, eyebrows creasing together. Waiting for him. 

Will lifts his glass and squeezes his lips together.

“To the devil his due.”

-

-

-

Hannibal stares at him from across the police cruiser. Will avoids his gaze and squares his feet on the floor at the first sounds of tires squealing. It doesn’t stop him from getting thrown into the side, making the world go black for a minute. Shots ring in his ears, and he squeezes his eyes shut, half expecting one through his own head.

When he manages to get steady on his feet again, rubbing at his head, Dolarhyde is staring at him through the entrance of the van. Will nods once. With a determined frown, the Red Dragon leaves.

There’s no time to waste, but still, Will sits and considers his options for a moment longer. There are many different paths he could take. No one knows but him, no one has the same control.

Finally, he stumbles forward and opens the gate holding Hannibal in. Hannibal’s eyes are attentive and curious, and Will can’t quite bear to look directly into them. 

“I know I was cruel before, but I need you to not bite me if I set you free,” Will says.

“I’m more curious to see how things are going to pan out from here. The dragon has risen, and that is not all that has risen, it seems.”

With a moment's hesitation, Will shuffles close enough to Hannibal to wrap his hands around the back of Hannibal's neck to feel for the buckle. Even with his arms outstretched as far as they can go, the proximity without a wall feels intense again, especially with Hannibal’s unwavering eyes. His expression is devoid of warmth, of sadness, of anything. Tentative and guarded and, despite everything, it is unsettling to be the recipient of such uncertainty. 

The mouth guard falls off of his face.

Will puts a gentle hand on Hannibal’s shoulder, and he turns in his seat. One by one, Will unbuckles the straitjacket from the top of his spine to the bottom until Hannibal can pull it the rest of the way off.

Will steps away before he can see Hannibal come fully free, hopping out into the fresh air and breathing it in in large gulps. If he thinks too hard about all he’s said and all he’s done, Will reckons he might just collapse in the spot. But Hannibal’s feet land on the gravel road with a crunch, and there are too many things he’s been waiting to do to give up now.

-

“Buffalo Will, huh?” Zeller says.

“Really? You’re making a joke at a time like this?” Price asks.

“It’s not a joke, I’m just saying...”

“You had that planned, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t! C’mon, I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Besides, maybe… maybe there’s another explanation.”

They look back at the page together. A single beard hair sits in a plastic bag nearby, a most lucky find from the floor of the last crime scene.

“I don’t know. This is really real this time, isn’t it, buddy?” Price says.

Zeller stares at the sheet, thinking it might change still. Wishing it would. That particular DNA is all around their space in here, not just in the lucky find from the crime scene. He leans into Price’s shoulder and feels a shiver run through his shoulders.

“Yeah. I think so. Time to call Jack. _Shit_ , Jack. He’s going to have a heart attack when he hears this.”

“Hey…” Price frowns. “When exactly was Will supposed to go to the drop with Lecter?” he whispers.

Slowly, they both turn and look at the clock on the wall with wide eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The first person just happened.

Will can’t deny how much he felt like a predator walking down the street in the early morning. How could he, covered in so much blood? Even as it rained, it just poured off of him red and red and red like he couldn’t hold it all in. None of it was real, but the metallic hunger in the back of his throat was just about unbearable.

He knew he was watching, waiting, but the possibility still felt far away. Then he saw a chef step out the backdoor into an alley and kick a stray dog begging for scraps, and there was no holding back what he wanted to do. 

Will knows patience. He waited, and bled, and waited, and then he brought out his own knife. 

It became easier to take the skin off with practice. It first came in thin strips, and then he kept cutting in too deep, splashing blood up at his face. It covered him inch by inch, and it felt _good._

In the morning, he woke up appalled at his dream and then realized the blood was still stained into his clothes. That had never happened with his hallucinations before. He stepped in front of the mirror and caught the very real blood between his pores. This was different, this was real, and for the first time in weeks, years maybe, he felt a piercing clarity.

His arms were still covered in very real red fluid up to his elbows. He stared at it for a while and then hesitantly swiped his stained skin across his face. His arms didn’t feel like his own arms, his reflection didn’t feel like his own reflection, but there he saw the blood cover his cheeks, smear between his eyebrows, and rub over his lips to stain them bright. 

Covered in blood, he sighed out, and he felt filled.

He needed to strip his own skin, get rid of the mask for good. He elevated those people, took their skin, made it easier to walk in the world for a few days, and then stripped back his own skin layer by layer.

Under his skin, he could already feel what was coming. It was righteous. Those pieces of him had fallen off in Hannibal’s cell, and he touched what was below and saw what he’d been looking to craft.

The senator's daughter's whereabouts came known to him in an overheard conversation in a restaurant with her friends, and it took weeks of subtle stalking to plan out the exact right time. Even the planned patience felt delicious.

And finally, he had the way to get Hannibal out as bait for real, where he could pull every string. He had everything he needed to say to the Red Dragon to convince him, and he had all the time to do so. Most importantly, he had the imagination to do it, and all he had to do was hide the bloodstains from everyone else in his life.

-

“Well, he’s not going to kill us here. And you’re not going to kill me here either, are you?”

“That I am not,” Will says.

Hannibal observes him curiously as Will pulls a policeman out of a car and climbs into the passenger seat. 

With a flash of satisfaction, he realizes Hannibal hasn’t quite figured it out. He came close, maybe, but he’s unsure. Nervous like he never is around anyone else. It’s addicting to know the power Will holds over Hannibal’s emotions. For it, Will stays quiet a little longer.

Hannibal climbs in the car without any convincing needed and pulls away in a sharp turn, bumping over a corpse with a crunch. Will knows where Hannibal will take them.

Will checks around his own head for blood but finds it dry. He thought his limbs would be trembling from the crash, but he feels steady and calm.

Hannibal clicks on the radio, and they listen to fuzz for dozens of clicks until something classical plays, coming in and out of service. Will would have guessed that it’d be too lacking in quality for Hannibal, but Hannibal’s face looks marginally calmer than before. 

Hannibal rolls down the windows next, and the wind musses up Will’s hair and gets little bits of dust in his eyes. It doesn’t stop Hannibal from sticking the top of his torso out the window, not unlike one of his dogs.

Hannibal squints his eyes and scrunches up his face at the dust and the sun, his hair whipping around his head. After a few more moments, he sits properly and rolls up the window halfway so he can keep his left arm out into the air. He coughs a few times, and in this light, Will can see clearly how his skin has lost some of the glowing tan from before.

“Do you remember how good it felt to have the sun on your skin again?” Hannibal asks, speaking loud over the wind. There’s a smile on his face again. His hair is so tousled it stands straight up. 

“I got outdoor time.”

“You did, but not enough for you, was it?” Hannibal makes eye contact. “If there’s a consolation to such unfortunate circumstances like imprisonment, it’s the greater capacity for understanding, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” Will grumbles.

“Mm. No. It’s the experience and the experience alone, whatever may come of it. And I am grateful for the experience you have given me, Will.”

"And what experience is that?"

"You already know."

“Always finding beauty, huh?”

“There is always beauty in extremity. Beauty is not happiness.”

“And you would choose beauty.” 

“I am choosing life, and death, and all it brings.”

“Don’t you just ever want to stop?” Will looks out the window. “Just rest peacefully for once? You never stop.”

“Theoretically, or do you assume it’s possible for me?”

“It would have been possible at one point for you.”

“Yes. And I have still been unable to turn back time.” His tone is mournful rather than mocking, and Will can’t help but look over to assess his frown.

“Theoretically, then.”

“The contradiction is that it would never have craved peace had I not experienced what I have. Beauty comes from the need for change. A longing. Only after which a victory will feel truly satisfying. But to answer your question, yes, peace sounds glorious.”

“And do you think you will be victorious and receive everything that you long for?”

Hannibal is silent for a long time. He rolls up the window, and the whistle of wind halts until only fuzzy classical music and breathing exists in the space.

“You know better than me if I will. I’ve given up on trying to see through deception and the potential of deception. I’d rather just ask for honesty because I don’t know what I have received recently,” Hannibal says.

“Will we ever be able to talk without dancing around everything we want to say?”

“In my defence, I’d rather not give you motivation to throw me out of a moving vehicle.”

Despite himself, Will chuckles. He leans his elbow on the door and rubs at his beard for a long minute. He rolls down the window himself and sticks a hand out until he can feel the sun, and it’s as though he, too, hasn’t felt it on himself for years.

“If it’s poetry and art that you want to live your life through, then it’s no fun to give you flat explanations and consolation. Why should I make it easy for you? I haven’t been given a chance at peace either,” Will says.

“No, no you haven’t. Though at one point it may have been possible for you.”

“That’s what you think only because you are too idealistic.”

“Speaking of my delusions again? I should balance my expectations?”

“No, I won’t try to take away your _extremis_.”

“It is the ultimate payback then, knowing how to affect me. How satisfied are you with it?” Hannibal asks.

“That remains to be seen.”

“This kind of revenge took patience and understanding. You can only hurt me this way because you cannot ever escape how well you know me.”

“A point for you, huh? Still keeping score?”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Hannibal says. He flexes his hands on the steering wheel and offers a sad smile to the empty road in front of them. He twitches, and for a moment, Will wonders if he’s going to reach out. He keeps observing him until Hannibal just opens the window again and gets his face under the sun.

-

The sun is obscured by wispy clouds when they reach the end of land. A chill has run over the air, and the sea salt wind is bitter. The plant life hasn’t been kept up, and everything looks abandoned and wayward where he steps toward the cliff.

“The bluff is eroding,” Hannibal says. “There was more land when I was here with Abigail. More land still when I was here with Miriam Lass.”

Will looks at Hannibal. Despite everything that has changed, the prison outfit that looks so wrong, the new lines on his face, the greying hair, Will suddenly sees the person from his past. The person who once consumed his every thought, who destroyed everything in his path one by one, who would give and take at his own discretion.

“Abigail.” Will sighs. “Even foregoing her death, there were so many months you kept her away from me.”

Hannibal stays quiet. Will likes to think it’s in shame.

“Was she happy here?”

He waits a long while for Hannibal to reply. He leans over the edge to see the base, and goosebumps rise on his arms.

“I am not sure if I can deliver what a teenager would consider as _fun,_ or even ordinary, but she was busy. We did many valuable lessons together. And she did very well working through her trauma. She was brave.”

“Lessons,” Will mutters. “Like a dad.”

“The closest I have felt to true fatherhood, yes. It was real to me.”

“And I didn’t get that,” he says sharply.

Will breathes slowly. He doesn’t want tears to spill, not again.

“After all this time, closing the gap of forgiveness seems less and less likely,” Hannibal says.

“Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I understand instead of I forgive. And that I don’t want to dwell on it anymore.”

“Yet you are dwelling.”

“I am. I opened the can of worms during my last visit and haven’t been able to fit the lid back on.”

“You had a lot of words during our last visit.”

Will scratches the back of his neck. “Jack and Alana needed to believe I was done with you.”

“Yes. But the truth came out anyway.”

“Both you and them would have seen through me if it wasn’t drawing from the truth.”

“And yet?”

  
  
“And yet.”

“Well, how did it feel to get it out?” Hannibal asks.

“Like absolute shit.”

“Well, then. We move on, or we find a way to move on. I eagerly anticipate whatever action you may choose in order to move on. Let’s go inside. The least we can do is discuss our scars over a glass of wine. And soon enough, all of this will be lost to the sea.”

Hannibal walks off, but Will lingers for a moment, staring at the roiling Atlantic.

-

The house is full. There are decorations galore, some from before and some that are nearly recognizable in how they fit Hannibal’s aesthetic so well. There is an extensive catalogue of books, stacks of entry-level textbooks with lightly broken spines. Clothes, too, some with Will’s initials on the tag that he has to walk away from. The piano is slightly out of tune, and a great deal of the pantry is expired. 

Hannibal spends a long time alone, with the sound of rushing water through the pipes, and Will can’t blame him. When he returns, Hannibal has returned to his particular form of normalness. Blazer and tailored pants and that attentive, confident gaze.

Wine bottle in hand, too, as promised. He hands Will a glass and stands close to pour it, a surreal experience to have the barrier nonexistent again. Their time breathing in each other's air has become a scarce experience, but none of the familiarity has gone. The changes on Hannibal’s face, the thick skin of his scars, and the deep wrinkles by his eyes remind Will of how long it has truly been. His own skin has changed, he knows.

“Do you intend to watch him kill me?” Hannibal asks. “Or perhaps you intend to kill me yourself?”

“I intend to see you _changed_.”

“With the help of the Great Red Dragon,” Hannibal adds on.

Will’s lip twitches, and he lifts his wine glass before taking a sip. Hannibal follows suit.

“I do recall I had another admirer for whom I was bait. Is he invited to our little party?” Hannibal asks.

Will is quiet for a moment. “Buffalo Bill?” 

“The one and only. We never had a chance to truly discuss this savage boy.”

“You do have thoughts on him then?” Will sips more wine to hide his face.

“Many. But for the sake of tradition, perhaps you should begin.”

Will swirls his glass and stares at the moon past Hannibal’s shoulder.

“His desires are intense,” Will says. “He is still coming into himself, and his particular style will not satisfy him for long. Already he has elevated himself with the Wound Man tableau.”

“But was that his own elevation or simply a way to receive my attention?” Hannibal asks.

“It’s both in effect, isn’t it? He is not unlike you.”

“I do feel connected to him.”

“Nonetheless, he has needed to do what he did to those victims. He needed to peel back every layer. It was difficult, time-consuming work. It was bloody and savage, and that is exactly what he needed. He needed to drain away every drop of blood, uncover each vessel, find what was below the mask.”

“Discover if there was a true self beneath the skin he wears.”

“Skin is flimsy. It pulls away without much strength needed in the end. And it tears.”

“There are many different kinds of commitment, like marriage or kids, but none so irreversible as mutilation.”

“Not mutilation,” Will says. “A cleanse.”

“Stripping everything away.”

“The bluff _is_ eroding, isn’t it?” Will smirks.

Hannibal smiles knowingly with a slight tilt of his head at Will. 

“And what do you think of Buffalo Bill?” Will asks.

Hannibal breathes in deeply and then closes his eyes before talking.

“Unlike our shy boy, and unlike most, I find myself very drawn to him. There is no hesitation in his savagery, no reservations about his own ability, only a courageous leap into the first cut. But there is so much ahead of him still. He’s looking for a challenge, a fight. And he has a great capacity to use the tools at his disposal to make something beautiful, something almost as beautiful as him. And I do, very much, feel his desire. I think he deserves everything he’s searching for.”

“Would you help him find everything he desires?” Will asks.

“It would be my greatest pleasure.”

They smile at each other over the wine glasses, the world outside so still that Will feels as though they could stay forever.

“Buffalo Bill is no stranger, Will,” Hannibal says.

“No. He… is not,” Will gets out with some struggle. Buffalo Bill had begun to feel like a different person, but in one single second, he feels himself snap into one.

Hannibal sounds breathless when he speaks. “What a cunning boy you are.”

“You didn’t guess it from the start?”

“I have been told I’m delusional before. Misplaced hope is a dangerous thing.”

“Hope makes us go on, even in the worst of circumstances.”

“It was there,” Hannibal confirms, looking away.

“You don’t need to wonder anymore.”

Hannibal smiles and leans in slightly.

“So, what did the letter of admiration say?”

Will laughs and shakes his head.

“It all sounds so simple coming from your mouth, but this hasn’t been easy on you,” Hannibal points out.

Will looks upward with a sigh and says, “I’m tired.” It comes out more sorrowful than he’d expected.

“If you don’t believe in it in the end, then do you have to accept that you gave up your whole life for nothing?” Hannibal asks.

“Molly will despise me for using her, and Walter will probably spend his whole life resenting me. Jack and Alana will never trust me again, will probably wish for my death instead. So yeah, that sounds about right.”

“The sacrifices have been hard. But the act itself wasn’t?”

“I thought it was beautiful,” Will whispers.

“It was,” Hannibal says immediately. Will catches the twitch of his hand and knows intuitively that Hannibal nearly reached out to touch him. 

Will suddenly wants it, desperately, a warm hand on his cheek or an arm around his back. 

At first, Hannibal’s timidness had given him a strange sense of power, but now he only feels sad thinking about the long years Hannibal went with no human contact at all. Will leans forward on his toes and then back again. He’s never been good with initiation, and the moment passes. 

He clears his throat. “It’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel clear. Like crystals for eyes.”

“And the noise fades away,” Hannibal muses. 

Hannibal steps away, and Will has to stop himself from immediately following. The lack of proximity is something to mourn. If only he’d take that last step, he might lose the ache, too. But he watches Hannibal sit on the piano bench and blow the last bits of dust off the keys. Will meanders a bit closer and listens to the song. It only lasts thirty seconds or so, and he realizes it sounds like the very end of a piece, and then Hannibal turns back to him.

Beauty, how Hannibal catches it so easily, always knows what to fill the air with. He smiles reverently up at Will from his seat and then gets swiftly to his feet.

Will feels his breath pick up and thinks it might be a shred of confidence, but he suddenly tunes into another presence nearby. Hannibal steps aside to the other side of the room, near the window.

“He’s watching us now,” Will says.

“I know.”

Will feels like there’s a great deal more to say, but it will take far too long to get the words out. That he still has all this resentment built up, and he doesn’t particularly want to give Hannibal everything he desires. That watching Hannibal die tonight would give him some semblance of peace, something he could walk away from. That if he feels the urge to end his life, he just might do it. 

But that at the same time, with Hannibal alive in front of him and all the possibilities of what they can be, it seems too painful to lose him again. That he feels the bubbling of protectiveness and possessiveness when he thinks about Hannibal out of his grasp. That he wants to end all the nightmares and the suffering from the last few weeks and make everything okay.

That Will dreams of Hannibal’s hands on him every night now, and whether they’re hurting or comforting him, he always wakes up wishing they were real. That it used to fill him with shame to think about what he craved, so sickened at his own fantasies, but now he thinks he can take the pleasure for what it is.

He still worries he’ll wake up one day appalled at his actions and realize just how deep he fell into this instability and insanity, completely taken by the manipulation until he lost the chance at a normal life that could have made him happiest. But when he cuts through skin and flesh and feels hot blood on his skin, it feels like the thing he was made for.

He still doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop missing the way Molly makes him laugh or stop feeling guilty over the selfishness of him marrying his best friend to fill some gap inside himself. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to think about Abigail without feeling like things will never be okay in the world. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to fully forgive.

But maybe if things go a certain way tonight, he’ll find whatever semblance of peace they can have together, if any at all. He won’t go his entire life not knowing, and he’ll have experienced true beauty for a time. He can’t find it in himself to regret that decision when he knows he won’t stop wanting it until he dies.

Maybe he’ll still get the chance to tell Hannibal all of this.

Hannibal steps further away from him, and he hears the explosion of a bullet followed by the twinkling of glass along the floor.

-

For a second, Will pauses.

Dolarhyde stalks after Hannibal, wings trembling menacingly on his back, and Will knows Hannibal has no chance. Injured, on the ground, Will could watch him be destroyed. He considers living in a life without the expanding, pulsing presence of Hannibal Lecter, without the hands latched deep in his gut and marks across his skin.

Will grits his teeth as he pulls the knife right out of his shoulder, blood spurting all the way down his torso with burning pain, and then he runs.

It flows out of him as he slashes into Dolarhyde’s back, harder and more savage than he’s used to, and he is sprayed with more hot, sticky blood. He swallows what gets in his mouth and readies himself for more, blade gripped tight in his fist and heartbeat loud and steady.

It’s now that he realizes his last victims were too easy, screaming and stumbling and falling in his arms at the first slice of flesh. He’d choose a thousand dragons over them, but he might only get one, and it might be the most beautiful moment of his life.

When he meets eyes with Hannibal, he has an urge that surprises him, one to pounce without any recognition of the consequences. But his eyes shift to their prey instead.

Each step he takes feels like Hannibal's. He learns what it feels like to slice the flesh of one’s gut and he sees every truth he's always known of Hannibal with a ripping bite before his eyes. 

Will falls backward, hitting the ground with a rumbling of pain, but when things go suddenly still with only the ringing of a note in his ears, he finds such a deep-seated satisfaction in his chest that it's as if he never needs to be fed again. That clarity is back, and he feels the Red Dragon's blood flooding the cracks in the cement like a caress down the back of his neck.

He stumbles around for a moment but finds he can't lift himself. He puts a hand up, waiting, needing it, and feels Hannibal’s hand wrap around his and pull him up.

He can remember after each of his other kills, a sort of euphoria slithering up his throat and settling on his tongue, but it isn't anything compared to the relief of this finality _._

He looks to the ground and sees unmistakable death, a dragon slain, and then he looks back to the teeth that caused it.

“This is all I ever wanted for you, Will,” Hannibal says, stumbling slightly while trying to hold Will’s weight. If Hannibal let go now Will would sink right down to the ground.

The blood drips off of Hannibal’s mouth, and Will feels himself leaning in. His eyes cross, and the world goes blurry for a moment, all except for that slick black hue in the moonlight.

“It’s beautiful,” Will says, blood sputtering out of his mouth. He clutches onto Hannibal’s shoulder, revelling in real, solid flesh that he could never quite grasp in his dreams. Now that he’s got a hand on him, he doesn’t think he could let go. He can’t stop staring at Hannibal’s mouth, and another kind of hunger solidifies in his mind with such stunning clarity that he can’t believe he ever doubted it.

Which is when he hears a new noise, a siren from far off in the distance. They weren't supposed to find out yet. He was supposed to have more time. His stomach sinks with the weight of a million bricks, and his eyes lift up to find Hannibal’s.

Hannibal doesn’t look worried. He smiles fondly.

“Let me tell you about the experience you have given me that I am grateful for,” Hannibal says.

“Hannibal, we should—”

“Shh. You worked so hard to get me here, didn’t you? You killed them and you took me right out of the prison cell you locked me into.”

Will nods. He gets a hand behind Hannibal’s neck and pulls Hannibal’s hand further around his waist. The outline of each finger burns into his skin. It’s like he can finally breathe, but the sirens are coming closer fast, and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

“Thank you, Will. _That_ is everything I could ever hope for. What you have given me is understanding through experience, within all the mistakes and the beauty and the longing is what I only could have guessed through art. But now I understand the drowning depth and the beauty of one thing. Love. And it is everything to feel it reciprocated.” 

Hannibal smiles, really smiles, and Will stares at him reverently. His eyes flutter trying to stay open to take it all in. Hannibal leans closer and nuzzles his cheek against his forehead so that Will can only stare at his throat. He leans his head the rest of the way down to Hannibal’s chest. For a few beats, things feel settled. Maybe this is enough, just to _know,_ to have gotten through and seen it _._ Where everything inside of him has been exorcised in all the pain and misery possible to reach all this beauty.

The police cars screech to a halt close by, and the sirens turn off. He hears footsteps.

“WILL!” Jack’s voice booms out. “Step back from him and walk over here. I know who you are, and it’s _over!_ Tell me where the senator’s daughter is, and I won’t shoot.”

Will can imagine the gun pointed at him, the fury and betrayal in Jack’s eyes, the FBI staring on in confusion. They will only need to find his storage locker key to find the Senator's daughter, and he doesn't really care if they do or don't anymore.

He pulls an arm tighter around Hannibal’s shoulder. 

They were meant to hike down to the boat he prepared with Chiyoh over the past few weeks, but there is a faster way down, one last chance for them. And somewhere inside of him, he knows they’ll reach peace.

It’s going to hurt, and that doesn’t bother him much anymore. With one more breath, he pulls their weight to the side and Hannibal is as easy to push if he were made of nothing. They fall hearing one last scream from Jack.

-

-

-

The sun is high in the sky. The gas tank is half empty, and he has to mop blood off the deck with one good shoulder. It was essential to take advantage of the darkness before Jack could call for the helicopters. Far from the shore now, he has to figure out their new coordinates and their new path and how to do it when his entire body has been completely destroyed.

Someone appears behind him with nearly silent footsteps.

“How is he?” Will asks.

“Fine,” Chiyoh says.

Will nods, squeezing his lips together. He knew he would be, ever since he pulled Hannibal's body onto the boat. The sun feels so warm on his skin now that it’s afternoon. He revels in it for a moment and nearly loses his balance as the relaxation washes over him. He blinks open his eyes again. There is so far to go, and he isn’t losing it now.

“Go lay down with him.”

“I need to—”

“You need to trust him _and_ me now. Go lay with your _Nakama_.” 

She offers him a small, teasing smile, which is new.

“Do you know how to—”

“Stop talking. Yes. You're like a dead body walking, you’re of no help to me.”

He smiles and knows he's probably moments away from collapsing. The pain doesn't really bother him, surprisingly. He's managed worse. It's that all of his energy has been sucked away into life.

“Thank you. For it all,” he says. “We’ll say this makes us even.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Because you pushed me off a train. And shot me,” Will clarifies, not without accusation in his voice.

“Okay, Will Graham.” By the expression on her face, he thinks she might as well be rolling her eyes at him.

He gives another awkward smile and ducks into the cabin limping. 

It still hasn’t quite clicked that he’s here, that this is his new reality, but he only has to focus on the stab wounds to remind himself. 

He steps past the other bedroom without a glance. Hannibal is taking up most of the space of his bed, face fallen slack in sleep. 

Will is careful, starting down near Hannibal’s feet and crawling up the bed on his hands and knees to not disturb him. 

When he’s nearly made it, Hannibal’s eyes pop open wide and he jerks where he lays, making Will jump.

“Jeez,” Will mutters, putting a hand over his own startled heartbeat. 

Hannibal composes himself quickly and breathes shallowly with smiling eyes. “Oh, you."

"Just me."

Hannibal's eyes flutter shut in exhaustion and his words are mumbled. "Have you come to kill me or be close to me?” 

“I’m not going to kill you,” Will says, hovering on his hands and knees.

Instead of a response, arms reach out to him and start to tug at his shoulders without much strength to it. It takes a long time for Will to stretch out his sore limbs and lower his tired body, half overlapping Hannibal on the tiny bed. 

When he does, he timidly sets his face under Hannibal’s chin and stares at his throat. He once couldn't imagine this stretch of skin without a bloody slash through it.

It still hurts, but maybe this is one thing that can feel good.

Hannibal pulls the blanket out from between them and wraps it around Will’s shoulders. Will stays completely still, feeling their fragility with such vividness that it's as if everything will fall away into a different reality if he makes a sudden movement. A hand strokes circles on his back over the blanket and the other pulls him tight. Again, Hannibal nuzzles his cheek against his hair.

The deep rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest reminds Will to breathe in, and it feels like the first breath he’s taken in years that doesn’t hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this far ❤️ this is technically the end, and the next chapter is a bit of a continuation/epilogue


	4. Chapter 4

Will kneels on the deck and holds onto the bar to steady himself. The stars and the moon give enough light to see the gentle rolling of wave peaks, barely moving at all. 

It’s incredible. In just minutes, everything in the world settled. 

He’s been hearing the crashing of waves and the creak of the mast for two weeks straight now, he’s felt wind so strong it tipped him over and water hitting his face so fast it was like cuts. He tore his stitches and ruined his back picking up shifts when Hannibal had scorching skin and confused eyes. 

Chiyoh took the brunt of the work, but there was only so long she could go for, one of them laying next to Hannibal while the other took the aching job of beating the sail, fighting desperately to stay awake for an hour longer. Will’s bruises were bone-deep, and he still isn’t sure if he’s recovered from hitting the water so fast it felt like cement. It doesn’t feel like there’s enough strength between them to go on much further into the deep Atlantic.

Until now. Stillness. 

Hannibal’s fever left with the supply of antibiotics and Will’s wounds held together, but there hasn’t been much opportunity to unflex his muscles. 

He sits right down on the cold deck. His muscles stop straining, and he lets his shoulders slump forward. 

He almost expects to see the scene change before his eyes, tricked by a false sense of security before the boat is pulled into a whirlpool from the myths or dragged undercurrent until a wave covers them deep enough to drown. It doesn’t feel possible to have peace like this anymore. 

He’s sure this won’t last. The season has been tumultuous, and nothing has ever come easy for him or Hannibal before. 

This clear night is a miracle, and with a stark realization, he looks upward and sees the stars fully uncovered. They were his only company the last time he took this trip. He looks at them with a breath of relief and feels as though he’s reuniting with family. He remembers what made him feel so safe out at sea.

He sits with them a few minutes more, his eyelids fluttering with tiredness. There’s someone else he should be with during this time, though. He pushes himself up on sore limbs and goes toward the warm light of the cabin, and he decides to trust the night.

“You’re up,” Will notes as soon as he enters the warmth and shrugs out of his coat. Hannibal spins halfway around to smile at him, then turns back to whatever he’s doing at the counter. His movements aren’t nearly as graceful as before, but he seems to push through his recovery with almost inhuman ability anyway.

“I felt the wind settle in a matter of minutes _._ The clouds parted, just like that. It was incredible,” Will says, walking the few steps to reach the kitchen.

“I felt it as I slept. That’s why I rose. It seems God has decided to set us on a clear path, and it seemed too good an opportunity.”

“Opportunity to stack up food all nice and presentable again?” Will asks. He peers over Hannibal’s shoulder. His fingers move nimbly, sliding toothpicks through shrimp placed delicately on a bed of sauce over top of thinly cut cucumber.

He thinks that if they were a normal couple, he’d rest his chin right on Hannibal’s shoulder now. He’d wrap his arms around the soft sweater Hannibal is wearing. But he doesn’t know what they are, so he hovers at his back, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Touch comes less easily when they aren’t buried in their sheets.

“The seas are only calm for _now_ ,” Will says. “We never know what’s to come. A few years ago, I got caught in a lightning storm, swear I saw it hit the water right next to me. Thought I was about to get struck down for my sins after all, and I wouldn’t say we’re safe on that measure.”

Hannibal huffs out a laugh through his nose.

“Go sit and rest. I’ll bring this over.”

Will complies, realizing in full the opportunity he has to sit next to Hannibal and talk about something other than where they’re going and how they’ll survive it, between sleep that feels like death grasping at them in the sheets. 

As difficult as the labour is, sailing is something he knows down to his bones. He doesn’t particularly know how to talk to Hannibal, still. 

The distractions kept him somewhere safe, where the difficult conversations didn’t fit. It’s hard enough to crawl into bed and feel arms pull around his waist. They slip up his shirt sometimes, and he pretends to be asleep. He thinks about how horrible it is that Hannibal so easily replaces the comfort he always sought in Molly’s arms. Fills the space better than she did, even though he’ll never give Hannibal the satisfaction of admitting it. 

The distractions have been as much a curse as they have been a relief. There’s pushing for their survival, and there’s the promise of what’s beyond, and then there are the hard decisions to be made on that path.

It’s frustrating how easily the fear slips back inside.

Sometimes he enters the room to find Chiyoh with her cheek pressed to Hannibal’s forehead, gently pushing his sweaty hair back with gentle touches, and Will thinks that he could do that, too. Care for Hannibal like she does, offer some tenderness after the long years without love. He's sure Hannibal wants it from him. Each time Will tries to leave the bed, arms wrap around him with surprising strength and panic he can feel down to his bones, but each time he just pries off the hands and leaves against all of his desires.

There is no evidence that this stillness will continue, and he ought to stop letting time run out for the two of them. He knows by now that the first cut is the hardest. He’s risen past who he was before, far past, but it’s taking a while to settle into this bruised body and find the words.

By the time Will shimmies into the bench, Hannibal sets down a plate and two plastic wine glasses.

“Tzatziki Shrimp Cucumber Rounds, paired with Pinot Noir.”

“We’re allowed wine now, Doctor?” 

“Not just allowed, I must insist on it,” Hannibal says, flashing a charming smile and pouring a newly opened red.

The bench dips when Hannibal slips in beside him and Will takes a bite. It’s a craving he didn’t know he had.

There's a stiff comfort in the air that he could almost settle deep into, but the instinct to be cautious hasn’t quite left. The ache continues. Even next to Hannibal, he finds himself missing him, and he doesn’t know why that feeling hasn’t left yet. Hannibal would understand, but there’s a specific kind of pain that comes with letting Hannibal deep inside his brain.

“I’m sure you know the sea has long since been associated with madness,” Hannibal says, ignoring Will’s mood. “Exiled into the embarkment to truth and uncertainty. Surrounded by water, the sailors are like prisoners with the most freedom on earth.”

Will might roll his eyes at Hannibal’s predictable spiels, but his soft, rumbling voice filling the air and replacing his spiralling thoughts is a relief.

“I reckon us going on this journey alone is enough to label it the Ship of Fools,” Will says, drinking a too-large gulp of wine.

“Do you feel like a fool?”

“I often do.”

“Not fortune's fool, you once said.” Hannibal smiles at him expectantly. Will gives him a quick exasperated side glance and decides not to humour him.

“The more days that pass, the more likely it seems that fate will keep us alive after all,” Hannibal says. “The sea has had many chances to pull us under completely. Madness is like the sea, a space in between, not death or life but a fluid, chaotic existence, unable to grasp any stability.”

“You avoided the insanity plea before,” Will says sarcastically.

“There are many different kinds of insanity, none so well defined.” Hannibal drinks wine and closes his eyes as he tastes it. 

“Some more tempting than others, when there is no recourse but madness?” 

Hannibal smiles, just the slightest twitch of his lip. Will has to look away, and he fills his mouth with another bite to allow the conversation to die down. 

“I missed your cooking,” Will mumbles with a swallow. Still misses it, still misses everything else that he can’t say.

“This is hardly anything. The ship pantry is very lacking, I’m sorry to say.”

“Just take the compliment,” he says, but smiles.

“Thank you, Will,” Hannibal says pointedly. He reaches for a piece himself and brushes their shoulders together. Without the harsh wind, Will can hear the crunch between Hannibal’s teeth, his slightly elevated breath through his nose, every shift of their shared seat. There isn’t space to move away anymore, and he’s grateful.

Hannibal doesn’t let any discomfort show when Will turns his head and observes him. He reaches out for his wine to sip at slowly, closing his tired eyes. Will’s eyes shift to the inside of his wrist, pale and bare where it lifts the glass to his mouth and sees just how much his scar has faded.

It feels like no time has passed just as much as it feels like years have gone by on this boat alone. They’ve been barely clawing through the physical pain and nightmares for ages already.

It’s hard to speak these days. What they know and what they feel is clear in silent recognition when they look at each other, and Will can’t help but feel like Hannibal is still trapped, waiting for Will to set him free.

Will clenches his jaw when he reaches out to grab Hannibal’s hand with a hesitancy that suggests he’s about to poke a burning stove. Instead, his skin is cold to the touch and surprisingly soft. He lifts the hand off of Hannibal’s lap and stares down at the veins on the back of his hand.

Hannibal is compliant when he gently turns his hand over and cradles his knuckles to expose the palm. The scar on Hannibal’s wrist is only a faint white line that most would miss by now. Will runs a finger down it, feels the tissue raised almost imperceptibly.

Their other wounds are not yet scars, but the stitches have stopped tearing, and soon they will look something like this. Will hopes he can observe them years from now, and it’s a dangerous hope.

He keeps cradling Hannibal’s hand and runs his thumb over the scar in rhythm to his twitching nerves.

“Scars hold a great deal of meaning,” Hannibal finally says, voice gentle, close. “What else offers such a potent reminder of the things others can do to us?” 

Will’s hand moves of its own accord before he hesitates but then decides to reach the rest of the way to press his thumb against the scar on Hannibal’s cheekbone. He lets the rest of his fingers brush the side of Hannibal’s head, strangely nervous to touch him like this, outside of their sheets where everything is different. This scar is a slight indent and feels nice on the skin of his thumb. He tries to avoid looking directly into Hannibal’s glimmering eyes.

He drops his hand but then picks up Hannibal’s wrist again, running his pointer finger along the line again.

“In that case, pain is reminded of more than any other kind of influence,” Will says.

“I think that’s apt.”

“Is it? Shouldn’t other things deserve more reminders?” He gulps. “Like tenderness or adoration.”

“Is pain truly separate from those things?” Hannibal stares at where Will holds his hand.

“You mean completely enmeshed with it? Or as a side effect that comes with the fear of losing someone?”

“I think that’s part of it being enmeshed, don’t you?” Hannibal asks.

“I think love can be like security for some.”

“It doesn’t run as deep without the fear of losing someone.” 

Will frowns at him. “It’s just different.”

“I suppose.”

“The greater the love, the greater the potential for pain.”

Hannibal smiles thoughtfully and nods, just a slight dip of his head.

“And why lovers are driven to their obliteration,” Will says.

“We have scarred each other a great deal.”

Will scrunches up his face. “I think it’s a bit uneven at this point.”

“You see my scars.”

“I did not create them.”

“You do not have to wield the blade. They’re still your scars.”

“It’s not the same. I haven’t scarred you directly.”

Hannibal looks into his eyes. “Yes, you have.”

He stays still as Hannibal’s thumb lifts to his forehead and then down the side of his face until he can hear the rustling of his beard hair. Hannibal always touches him with such certainty that he feels like he has no time to take it in before his skin is tingling and marked. Will looks up into his eyes, and Hannibal’s hand lingers.

“These are all your scars, too, then. Is that what you’re saying?” Will asks.

“Of course.”

“Not to mention those that go deeper.”

Hannibal sighs. “Yes.”

Will considers him for a moment. Hannibal looks serene when he’s melancholy, smooth and statue-like. His movements are slow and attentive.

“You _like_ me marked with scars. Or anything else that means blood has been spilled.”

Hannibal doesn’t look shy, but he doesn’t reply either. Will doesn’t need confirmation to know. He thought he would feel more resentment over the fact, but he’s far from it.

Will doesn’t recall needing a great deal of self-control to stay away from Hannibal, but now the thought of letting go of his wrist feels like it’ll crack something inside of him. There’s a neediness inside of him that he recognized before but never had an antidote for. It should feel good to do this, but it feels like a knife twisting around inside of him. So much time wasted, so much that he craves but can’t reach still, and he wants to stop missing Hannibal. It’s been years of missing Hannibal, no matter how close they are in the moment.

The darkness outside is heavy, and he knows the more it presses on them, the sooner it is that they’ll need to sleep, that the wind will start to whistle through the bent window and alert them of rough seas again. He doesn’t even know their destination. He just keeps going East.

He lets go of Hannibal’s wrist so he can push himself up with the back of the bench, and Hannibal’s hand drops away. 

He winces, his body still aching in multiple areas, but he manages to get into a kneeling position on the bench facing Hannibal. 

Tilting his eyes upward, he almost wishes there was something on the other side of the ceiling he could pray to about what he’s about to do. He starts to unbutton his collar.

About halfway done undoing the buttons, he chances a glance back down. Hannibal’s chin is tilted upward, and it’s not unlike he’s praying as well.

He tilts so he can let the sleeve of his bad shoulder slide off and fall down his arm, dropping the shirt to the side so that he can show Hannibal his stomach scar. Perhaps he’s seen it already, but he’s never been given permission.

“I still have to look down to make sure there isn’t something inside of me sometimes,” Will whispers, setting a hand over the scar.

Hannibal doesn’t reply, nor does he look at the scar. 

Their eyes stay locked together. Will sways ever so slightly where he perches on his knees. He had thought that Hannibal would want to see. And then he feels the slightest touch on his stomach. Hannibal’s finger traces it slowly across his stomach, even feeling up the slight notch on the side with perfect precision while maintaining eye contact. Finally, he lets his eyes fall below Will’s gaze and trace slowly down his chest just in time to let Will remember to breathe.

The touch returns when Hannibal appraises Will’s scar with his eyes. Will stays very still.

“Is this a ‘show you mine if you show me yours’ kind of situation?” Hannibal asks.

Will’s lip twitches upward, but he manages not to laugh aloud. He stares into the distance as his heart picks up speed. 

“Suppose so,” he mutters, then grabs Hannibal’s face with both hands as he lowers down. For a man who seems so untouchable, it’s strange to feel the altogether humanness, every movement and twitch under his palms. 

He gulps then grabs the bottom of Hannibal's sweater to pull it up over his head carefully. He watches as chest hair and pale skin comes visible, and below, a large bandage. Hannibal gently fixes his own hair.

This would be a good time for Hannibal to reciprocate, he thinks. Fill the space with the words that they’re both thinking, or make a move back, but he seems content to be passive. Will has the urge to berate him, but there are no actual words on his tongue. He leans in close and doesn’t bother to pull back.

Dumbly, he thinks _now what?_ But he knows. It doesn’t feel difficult, per se. He has the self-control to push himself those extra few inches and press their lips together, he could do it in the next second. It’s just the idea that once he does it, he can’t take it back. Once he does it, that sensation will exist in the universe, it will live in his head, and no matter what he does, it will replay over and over in his mind, and the feeling will never leave. It shouldn’t feel like such a big deal. It’s nothing new to him, it’s only flesh, the atoms of bodies pressing together, but it has always felt like there was something much bigger, something cosmic at stake between them. Even after death, he will keep track of each barrier he and Hannibal crossed, merging into each other as though becoming one body.

His face lingers close to Hannibal’s, and he sways slightly, a strange wave of dizziness overcoming him, thinking too hard about the metaphysicality of their touch. Time is dragging, and maybe it’s odd to just sit and stare at Hannibal, but he feels _stuck_.

Will gulps. “Hannibal,” he mutters, but he means _do something._ If only Hannibal would kiss him, break Will out of his crippling spiral of overthinking. He isn’t even sure if he intended to take it this far. The flesh below his scar is tingling with something akin to pain as if something is moving his organs around.

Hannibal doesn’t reply. His smile is lighthearted, almost dopey in its crookedness, but Will has seen this intensity that exists in Hannibal’s eyes before, just not with so much undisturbed observation.

“Now is the time you decide to finally shut up and stop grabbing at me?” Will tries to say it mockingly but it comes out like a croak.

He watches Hannibal gulp and run his eyes in circles around Will’s features. 

“Honestly, I just don’t want to miss anything that you do.”

Hannibal looks earnest, staring at Will like he wants to drink him in. Will lets a smile crack, crooked because he can’t stretch one side of his face. He hadn’t ever been entirely sure how Hannibal would react in a situation like this and he’s surprised to find himself fond.

His knees are starting to go numb, and he wonders how long he’s been frozen here. He’s had enough. Out of pure stubbornness and with some stiffness in his joints, he crawls off the bench and grabs Hannibal’s hand to pull him with him. 

The moon is shining bright enough through the skylight that he doesn’t turn on a light in their bedroom. Will, growing quickly enthralled with the pliant nature of Hannibal right now, guides him to lay down, helping so he doesn’t strain too much, and then crawls on top of him.

Too close to feel any distance when he rests his chest atop Hannibal’s, he lets his nose poke Hannibal’s face and then kisses him.

He’s still not quite prepared for how it makes his mouth water and his gut ache to taste Hannibal. They are still for a moment, pressed together, and then Will furrows his eyebrows and kisses him like he means it. 

The dizziness is back in full swing. It’s a wet kiss immediately without his conscious thought to do so, and he listens to the sound of their spit and breath mingling together. Hands drag up his lower back until they’re on the nape of his neck and tangling into his hair. He doesn’t worry about how much weight he’s letting fall into Hannibal’s chest because it feels like they’re just sinking into each other anyway, but he’s careful to hover over his gunshot wound.

He grasps at Hannibal's hip and spares himself one last horribly self-aware thought that he has taken Hannibal Lecter to bed and then allows himself to get lost.

He shifts to push down Hannibal's pants, but Hannibal stops him with two firm hands on either side of his neck. Pulling him back down, Hannibal presses his face into Will’s neck and breathes in deeply for a long moment. Will laughs breathily, more out of shock than anything, but allows himself to be held close and still for a moment.

“It’s weird to smell people, you know,” Will whispers.

Then it’s wetness, and Hannibal is kissing his neck, and it feels _good_ , everything feels good and tender and intimate. There’s a feeling at the back of his throat that’s like something akin to abated hunger. Will clings to him and pressing against his chest, he can feel the fluttering of Hannibal's heartbeat that matches his own.

“I thought your heart never raised over eighty-five?” Will mumbles against him.

Hannibal breathes heavily and licks at his neck. “Love is a certain kind of madness, I suppose.”

“Don’t die on me now.”

“Move too rough, and I just might.”

“It hurts?”

“No. Nothing hurts. Kiss me again,” Hannibal demands, pulling Will in before he even finishes speaking.

If asked beforehand, Will would have assumed this would be one of the most painful things he ever experienced. Years of distance and regret and aching don’t leave room for a painless touch, each tender brush like a slice. There should be blood trailing along where Hannibal’s lips are, but if there is, it feels lovely. He never would have expected to feel contained, at peace here on their boat where nobody knows what they’ve experienced but them. A bite at his neck doesn’t register as pain, even if the bruise will probably turn up stark tomorrow. He hopes it does, at least. Turn his skin red and purple, stick around for a while.

With enough shuffling and Hannibal loosening his grip, Will can get their pants down just enough and feel their skin pressing together, coarse hair and smooth skin and warmth, and he starts to miss Hannibal a little less.

“Oh, Will,” Hannibal says, and it sounds more shocked and glorifying than Will probably deserves.

He tries to hold himself up on his injured shoulder and reach between them, but his joint starts to ache too severely. He switches arms with a grunt and pushes his injured arm between them but sucks in a fast breath through his teeth at the pain of his shifting stab wound.

“Damn. I’m falling apart,” Will says, pushing his forehead into the pillow next to Hannibal’s face.

Hannibal’s breathy laugh hits his face. “No, you’re not. Hold yourself up.”

Will shifts his weight onto his good shoulder and gasps when he feels Hannibal wrap his hand around him. 

“Stay like this. I have you,” Hannibal says.

Will pants against Hannibal’s neck at the gentle stroking of Hannibal’s hand and tries to take in the swimming in his gut. Minutes drag and he's still not sure that he can get a handle on the sensations running through him, the horrifying truth of where he's ended up years after meeting Hannibal for the first time and the even more horrifying thought that it feels completely right.

When his arm gets tired, he rolls on his side and Hannibal follows. They touch each other at the same time, and Will finds Hannibal’s lips again. This is what’s really enamouring him, here where every movement feels so intentional and consuming and right in front of his eyes where he can’t run away from what’s really happening. 

They’re slow and weak, and their incapacitated physicality brings an amused smile to his mouth. The slow frustration isn’t particularly unwelcome, not when he can linger in the feeling, here where things feel good, even if it might not last. His hips twitch, and he thinks he could do this forever, sticking on the edge of pleasure.

It's still enough, after so much building and building, and Hannibal comes first, pressing close and saying Will’s name reverently into his mouth.

When Will comes, it’s with a shiver all the way up to his spine and a noise he doesn’t recall consciously allowing his throat to make. He pants and lets his head drop back like a bobblehead, and a hand grasps gently on the back of his head, almost comforting, pulling him in close again. And he stays, and breathes, his hands tensing where they hold onto Hannibal’s biceps.

A few minutes go by, enough to steady their breathing and slip into this peace he’s been grasping for, Hannibal’s head dipping to rest under his chin. He prays that they won’t hear the whistling of the wind outside, that they’ll have calm seas for a little longer. He wonders if it will always be like this, if they'll keep finding pleasure in each other and if Hannibal will keep showing this utterly human side of him.

Hannibal presses his lips to Will’s ear and speaks so softly that Will can hear his fatigue gradually taking over by the second.

“You have been at a crossroads all your life, between home and truth,” Hannibal mutters, and Will hears all he meant to say in the half-formed thought.

“Are you asking if I’ve merged the two?”

“I was going to ask if you’d chosen one,” Hannibal says, and when he pulls back a few inches, Will can see the sudden hope in his expression.

“Yes, I’m staying with you. I’m already on this damn boat, aren’t I?”

Hannibal kisses his temple firmly and stays there. “The sea will welcome us, I believe that.”

“I can get used to this, so I guess I can get used to being a madman on a boat and to living in my new skin and feeling you leave handprints all over my life. And I think I can handle you being set free. So, yes. I’d like to stay for a while longer, and I don’t think I could stop feeling this way if I tried. Is that what you’ve always wanted to hear?”

“As long as you mean it.”

Will pulls his arms a bit tighter around Hannibal and looks out the skylight over his shoulder to the stars, the night still clear.

“I think I loved you from the start,” he admits with a sigh, like it's something to mourn.

“We can have our peace now, then. I promise,” Hannibal says, and kisses him like he's something to cherish.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol, epilogues are meant to be short wrap-ups, aren't they? oops. i hope you all enjoyed anyway ❤️ i appreciate any feedback and if you'd like to share or come chat on tumblr you can do that [here](https://will-gayham.tumblr.com/post/640494850584821760/the-hardest-of-hearts-44/) :)


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